Virgin

By Dev Murphy

These are the gods we do not want: the gods who descend in the form of horses or buffalo or swans, who lie with our women, and make them into something half-human. We want a god who will come down in the form of a wisp of air, a Holy Spirit, an honest-to-God God, and take our women inconspicuously.

*

Tell us what happened, because the citizens are turning the rocks over and over in their hands.

*

How did it happen? Did he come like a thief in the night? And did you push his glory from your loosening thighs?

Were you compliant under the promise of his favor?

Did you enjoy it, Mary? You said yes, after all.

What were you wearing, Mary?

*

What a blessing, Mary, to be chosen this way. Of all women, his eye landed on

you

*

Oh, Mary, oh woman clothed in sunlight, blessed above all women, a body soft as chalk. So rudely forced.

Red is always for the death of your son, but didn’t you wake up the morning after he was conceived in a matte of blood? What did you tell people?

Did you wander about with your head hazy and your limbs aching? Did you glare at people

on the street, wondering if they knew how your body had been used? How you had been betrayed by the one person you believed you could trust?

You are a Woman now, Mary. These things happen. You ought to know.

*

The citizens are turning the rocks over in their hands, Mary, so make your story good. Two thousand years later, and they’re still turning the rocks over and over and over in their hands.

—

About Dev Murphy

Dev Murphy is a Pittsburgh-based writer and visual artist. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Guardian, Empty Mirror, Entropy, Brevity, CutBank, New Ohio Review, and elsewhere. She tweets @gytrashh. Murphy’s Virgin can be found in issue 39.2 along with other fantastic poetry and prose.