Holiest Of Shotgun Weddings Poem by Jacob Bearer

Mary had a shotgun wedding
with her brown melon belly
cupped by Joseph's cracked fingers;
five oak pillars guarding the Tabernacle,
while the morning flame impregnated their bedroom.

Last night, Mary kept vigil at her bedside;
with her hands folded over her patched blanket
while her lips fluttered heavenward sighs.
The Messenger burst through the window blasting:
"You shall bear a son!
Will you raise this sun? "

The rapt choirs of angels
held their breath at their pews' edge.
As Mary's knees shook the floor boards
grace shook the world's splintered fears
buckled from a million hellfire hazes

that turn our faces to our graves.
She raised us from these our rotten tombs,
started salvation with a soft voice saying:
"Yes, let it be done.
Amen, I will raise God's Son."

Chaste love formed a chalice in her chest
and God poured himself into her mold
like a priest whispering prayers over bread;
feeding his nations' empty stomachs for the quest.

Dawn undimmed our valley of tears
when Mary's fears griped her poor blanket
and God's faith set the world's hope
on the tiny altar of a girl's wooden bed.

Gabriel's ears were the first to hear that note.
Our first fulfilled hymn sounding pure
after ten thousand years of wandering.
A symphony was intoned through Mary's solo
and she conceived a chubby Baby-God with her Yes.

The heat of Day woke the newly weds.
Mary got up, slipped on her coffee stained dress
and Joseph knelt before his beaming wife.
First, he set his ear to her stomach.
Then, she set her hands on his bare shoulders
as he smiled and kissed her bellybutton.