American Atheneum, a Collection of Arts and Letters

MaryAnn Bennett Rosberg
Chicago, IL
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Feast of St. Bridget
The ways of women

Walk the milky way
of ground whiter than a snowsky,
where cat prints follow crowfeet
making filaments, a new phylum;
Both disappear.

They made Bridget a saint,
that Daughter of a Druid, or the Dagda
(god who loved beautiful women more than worship)
and they carry the candle for her,
smoke from hand and mouth
for she who fills the head with fire
in this northern world of glass rain
where the seed is sealed beneath the snow.

There is another Bridget,
Cat Annie,
first to go west, dance in the gin joints,
pick breakfast off the trees,
Afraid to die, but not to try
to take it all with her:
the gold, the furs, her man.
bleeding from the breast,
she knew how not to have children.
For her: show your claws, leave your mark.

In the south, she's Yamenza,
half fish, half woman,
rolling in the water ways,
breasts fountaining milk into sky for stars,
dropping back to cap the waves,
making divine foamy children
with hot crosses on their buns
for Fat Tuesday's
bodyfull carnival.

Dance around her belly
in the east:
for lambs and lovers
for the stolen, and the savored
for new wool and long legs.
For afterbirth, and Hecate and refuse
for re-fusing
the touch that masks, makes it all right.
for the milky way and night.

Foster mother of Jesus,
Mary of the Gaels,
she would have bitten the head off those
who tried to harm her son, the lover-one.

She is woman's day and night
warmth of beast and breast,
the star cutter, cave of no return.