Here’s another poem from the new book Gloved Against Blood by Cindy Veach.
The Other Woman
My grandfather did not come back
instead he sent his girlfriend knock-
knocking on the door to ask please
grant him a divorce. My mother,
age two, peek-a-booed
with this visitor in camel-hair coat
with painted nails. And my young
grandmother in her thin housedress
a pocketful of rosary beads, gold-plated
crucifix tap-tapped on her collarbone
like a metronome. For she believed
believed. Read her Maryknolls, went
to daily mass, confessed to the gauzy man
shadow who at the end mimed his blessing
making of his hand a steeple that knifed the air
she breathed as he pronounced her penance—
which could erase every black mark
but one. No, no, not for any number
of Our Fathers. This she knew
knew and never questioned
even at the moment the softly
made-up other woman stood before her
both feet firmly planted on the threshold
mouthing—please.
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