A Statue's Virgin Lamentation Over A Grave, Gloucester, Massachusetts,1978 Poem by Warren Falcon

Looming over a family plot a figure of
Cain at the head of 14 year old boy's grave:


Ground my face in the world's
crotch I'll never do though I wish it.
Closest I'll ever come be the day
I lay my thumbs beneath the dirt
and fish for an earthworm's eye.

Soft skin I'll never touch
'cept mine own hard flesh
with thumbless caress.
What thigh shall ever be mine?
And no man lip touch ever,
him I've slain, nor womankind want,
I hate my mother's name.

To fold the soil or sever
muscle with the teeth, spit
seed to the wind or dribble
praises manfully down the cheek,
oh heady sin, bitter tears.

The silt of September's enough.
Hard clay of October be bust.
A fist to the day's end, black
blade pierce the heart if I cannot
kiss you, oh Mud, cannot push
my face into your belly moaning thick-

love of the world,
eating fossil and coal,
drinking ancient tar
and artesian melt-

if I cannot have it then
I have not known the Jehovah Man.
I have breathed salt for nothing,
taken all words for fool's
bedding, crushed them
like my brother, flung them
over fences, slain them
all to the last letter,
each a shattered stilt.

Even upon the word of my name
I bring down the stone.
But in vain. Each blow
cannot crush it.

No end.

No prayer.

Black night descends.

The dark well screams.