Poetry Magazine
The Son of the Wall
The Christian cannot
be the pitying one
because he is
the one pitied.
From a dusty road
in a straight line
from przedmiescie to Krasnystaw
at the entrance to town
at Zhitkovski's
in his house we lived,
he makes coffins
with crosses.
On the threshold
I sat as a boy
opposite a building
held together by nails
facing the church
the cloister the impurity,
my mother says,
I sat as a boy.
On the wall
Jesus and Mary.
Jesus and his mother
were never parted.
My mother's son
left her
not to be
on the wall.
Mary's son
never left,
and he paid
the price.
—October 26-29, 1989
Source: Poetry (April 2008).
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Religion, Faith & Doubt
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