“The Hands That Held You”

(Written from the orphanage, Il Istituto degli Innocenti in Florence)

Dear Agata,

On the 5th of February in the 15th century,

you were left in the basin at the hospital’s entrance –

swaddled in emerald cloth and crying for the hands that held you.

You were the first to arrive at the hospital’s doors.

The first to be taken in by a wet nurse, and

when she could no longer provide for you,

the first to suffer at the hands of the woman who

was supposed to be your savior.

“Dead and undone, full of abuse.”

You were there for six months, returned battered and bruised.

You were starved and neglected, scared and alone.

Mice bites on your flesh, skin taut across bone.

The saint that you’re named for was tortured for her purity, but

she was healed for her eternal love and granted security,

so where was “Mother” Mary? Where was Jesus? Where was God?

When you died in that hospital, was it Moses who led you on?

Were they the hands that held you?

Tell me what I might have seen.

If I hadn’t been found in that hotel lobby

Mid-February of 2003.

Our mothers must have loved us enough to save us while they could.

I just wonder if it’s more concerning whether or not they should—