STARR PAUL | SHE EVEN LOOKED LIKE A SHEEP

SHE EVEN LOOKED LIKE A SHEEP

A stiff woman, oldest living Basque in Wyoming, Amatxi’s spine

shaped in prayer, her hair tufted like

sheep she used to herd wooly, water resistant.

Still she insisted on a plastic bonnet with every rain

her fingers trudged tired at their joints

from beading rosaries between

reciting the prayer, three times daily, her voice

splitting and filling with wooden beads from calling Christ

when she could no longer kneel before hardened pews

the priest beamed to her bedside, Mary never missed communion

anyway, when she died the organ sounded as an alarm

to let the church know I had been misplaced.

You can’t escape serving God even in death so

here I am, reciting the rosary on carpet-burnt knees:

Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for our sinners

now, and at the hour of our death, Amatxi,

I was tied to a woman’s tongue, only moments

before you died, is this prayer about me?

Starr Paul is a poet and graphic designer from the Black Hills of South Dakota. She is currently an M.F.A. student at Western Colorado University. Starr is drawn to creating poems that explore romanticism, death,  and connection.