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The Vow
"Batter my heart three-personed God."
John Donne
Maybe I should make a vow.
What do I sacrifice?
To What or to Whom?
Should I light a candle,
Get on my knees and mount
A long flight of stairs
Like the Scala Sancta?
Should I sling a scallop shell
Around my neck and
Saunter to a sacred site?
The nun in Greece said,
An icon is not an icon
Unless the artist believes.
What kind of contract can
I make with the powers
Who rule the world or
Just hang around playing
Favorites and making mischief
My grandmother fell down
A flight of stairs in
Her tenement on Sullivan Street;
She made a vow: if her baby
Were born intact she would
Never again eat meat on Wednesday.
A big, chubby baby emerged,
My mother now in her nineties.
Where would she or I be
If there were more steps
That flight on Sullivan Street?
I grew up never eating meat
On Wednesday though
I never knew why.
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