MARY TELLING JOSEPH THAT SHE PREGNANT

Pamela Mordecai


Joseph, my betrothed, I don’t know
where to start. I was into the red
of this egg a long, long time before

I did know the shell mash!
And there never was egg that I meet
in my life to compare with this one!

Jah-Jah himself witness that is true.
And you know, is my mother to blame!
Is okay, Joe! Don’t look so confuse.

I don’t mean it the way that it sound.
But is Ma self tell me I must take
time to ponder on things.

Is that I was doing, looking over the plain,
listening to the children reciting Shema
in the schoolroom next door

when the porch fall into
a deep shadow right there.
I frighten straight away.

And this angel as big and as bright
as the sun ask me if I would bear
Jehovah pikni.

What I could do? Don’t I
must have to tell him yes?
Don’t just stand there, Joseph,

for you have every right to feel vex
or to think that I losing my mind.
If so, how I could ever blame you?

 

Pamela Mordecai was born in Jamaica. She has published five collections of poetry and an anthology of short fiction. She has also written many textbooks and edited or co-edited groundbreaking anthologies of Caribbean writing. Her poetry for children is widely anthologized. Her poems have been shortlisted for the Canada Writes CBC Poetry Prize and UK’s Bridport Prize. This poem is from de book of Mary, forthcoming in fall 2015 from Mawenzi House Publishers and also dedicated to Kamau.