January 30th, 1649

She dips her kerchief
into a pool of still-warm blood.

It is the holy blood of the king
and it will stain her cotton lace.

Giddy at the sight of it she pushes
through the wailing crowd,

the counter-surge of the masked men,
the tethered faces of those who

are to blame. She runs with the blood-
soaked cotton, away from this place

and its blaspheming scaffold, stumbles,
falls, looks above: the sky gathers

with His anger. Thunder will gouge
and clap, expose her world for all to see.

She runs, runs with her bloodied
rag past swooning maidens,

boars and rabid dogs, into
the back-alley of her birth.

Still there is no escape from
the all-denying - their prayers

afester, their tears and screams,
the slop and darkness of the hour

branding each to their last day's end.
She enters a house and bolts the door.

In a bed beside a fire
a mournful child awaits.

"Here" she says, "by the blessing
of God, I have it...

that was found in his
sacred touch when living...

to lay upon your
sickened brow."