Rachel cries in my arms
hearing the distant screams,
“Be calm, little one.”

“The guards will hear us.”
Dim light oozes
the drapes hanging, louder now

The door bangs
A firecracker among the cries
And he is all boots and blood.

The leaden steps can’t stop
and the screams are mine,
“She’s a girl, no, she’s a girl.”

But he grasps her in one hand
blanket torn back with the other
and scoffs,

Tossing her back to me
like laundry to a slave.
Rachel’s whimpers uncovered

Her white blanket marred
with a cherry fist.
And the spirit of my mother,

For whom she was named
wails too, but kneels at the throne
with all these tiny saints.