Manhattan, 1892 Worn hands lift a basket - placing it on the other side of a door purposely left ajar. Ruddy shadows drift about walls and floor within an empty foyer - cast by a flickering votive. Snug about her shoulders like a shawl pulled for warmth, winter darkness clings fast and a shallow breath catches in her chest ... momentarily caged lest someone hear it. Silence ... nothing comes to her - not a watchmans step not a movement within the woven ark - not a plaintive cry no words of rebuke. The boy-child sleeps swaddled against the March cold unaware of waves of sorrow and regret surrounding him as she wills herself toward the slice of space between refuge and a street awash in dawns watery light ... Revealing grim-faced laborers fish mongers already hawking their wares ... pick pockets scanning the walkway ... unclaimed knots of boys roaming aimlessly. Only a few steps ... they sweep her into a river of faces carrying her in its wake ... While the boy-child - a scrap of paper pinned to his wrapping ... bearing rudely scrawled letters - Joseph - waits for new hands to pluck him from the reeds.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 18:28:14 +0000