Immaculate Conception

They made the manger birth about Jesus,

not Mary—archetype of every mother’s secret hope,

our silent prayer, studying the silken face and limbs

of sons whom, we know, fueled by our milk

and poverty, will save the world of awful men from

themselves, having filled us countless times with unwelcome

seed, fabricated a fantastic tale of God coming

in the form of a dove (or swan, eagle, bull, ram, rain)

into her. It is not a woman’s story. It is a man’s

ruse. Immaculate conception. You and I both know—

had she told the truth, men would not have believed her,

would have blamed her, or made a miracle of it, of her, child

as she was, cradling their newborn hero against her heart.