Gingerbread With Silver Beaded Buttons Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

gingerbread with silver beaded buttons
I was given once in exile
between jobs

and in the rains
and it was almost worth
the fairytale feeling that ensued when

I was given gingerbread and bright paper
icons of the Greek Orthodox Faith
and I went home

to the little apartment I was receiving eviction
notices for every month which had not come to pass
due to delaying kindness yet

put me in mind of Dostoyevsky's executions
in the prison yard that kept on being announced
and then canceled,

and Lord, I pray, sustained on your gingerbread still
that those who say evil against those who are kind
be exiled in the rains the beautiful rains

that will wash all cruelty from their lips
and then, will you feed them on honeycakes.
so that their speech no longer wounds us.

mary angela douglas 24 april 2016