St. Germaine of Pibrac

patron of: abandoned people; abuse victims; against poverty; bodily ills; child abuse victims; disabled people; girls from rural areas; handicapped people; illness; impoverishment; loss of parents; peasant girls; physically challenged people; poverty; shepherdesses; sick people; sickness; unattractive people; victims of abuse; victims of child abuse; young country girls

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they should have known

she wouldn’t last.

she emerged at birth with

blue lungs full of silver pins.

there was nothing to do

but send her out to the field

with God and a candle and see

how long it would take

to set this horizon on fire.

she has no future, no past

to paste into books,

to remember through song,

or mother’s bread,

or the ways the pleats

in her skirt hid all those

bruises on her knees.

a forest of wolves welcomed

her cloud down to the wheat.

they bit into the softest thing

they could find.