Entering The Virgin's Heart

A mother came to mould … limbs like ours.
                        — Gerard Manley Hopkins












She was born without hands;
her feet made music on harp strings,
each toe-pluck sounding with
the confidence of a dancer’s pose.


How quickly it was
she saw surety and beauty,
as she gazed upon the statue of Mary
and entered into the Virgin’s heart.


Afterward she insisted
that standing en pointe
on moss on the cliff’s craggy edge—
like the picture that hung in Grace’s kitchen,
but with rounded nubs
instead of the usual long, slender fingers—


is perfect worship.






                          Helen Losse












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