Stabat Mater: The Mother Stands

I want kindness to be enough

I want the flying gulls not to be planes,

the pollen-stained finger not to be a rusty blade 

I want the cool ceramic cups not

to be skulls

The wide hole beneath the pines should be a new rink

The smoke in the Valley must be singed leaves

I sense where this is going

I want the poem to veer away from 

the men bound and barricaded in the Stadium

I want the women outside The Donut Shop 

with hoods roped to their heads, to be playing a game

Please.

Is this where the poem should go?

Shelves at the grocer are not blackened bare,

taps not reeking green, tents at the Civic Centre not

I want to stop now

teeming with cholera, typhoid, rape

I want the poem to be enough

I want the knocking to be spring