Mary

by Joseph Fasano

Mary 


Even now, in my weakened dreams,

he comes to me—

my lost son, risen

from the empty tomb,

his hands of a simple, nameless maker.

His father was the spring wind 

in my olive groves, his sisters

my linens that will never mend,

his brothers like the sea

I won't be keeping.

His voice is all my dark lambs in the rain.



I wish I could tell you

how it all ends. I wish

I could tell you what a heart is.

But even now 

he comes to me, in darkness,

and lies beside my body

in his crown of thorns,

and lays his hands

on the wounds the world has given me.

This, he whispers, this 

is the mystery.

Do something with the greatness of your pain.

---

Joseph Fasano’s writing has been translated into more than a dozen languages and is celebrated around the world for what Ilya Kaminsky has called its “lush drive to live, even in the darkest moments.” Fasano’s many books of poetry and prose include The Teacher (2025), The Last Song of the World (2024), The Swallows of Lunetto (2022), Vincent (2015), and Fugue for Other Hands (2013). His poetry prompts, collected in The Magic Words (2024), have helped people of all ages unlock their creativity. His honors include the Cider Press Review Book Award, the Rattle Poetry Prize, the Wordview Prize from the Poetry Archive, and a nomination by Linda Pastan for the Poets’ Prize, “awarded annually for the best book of verse published by a living American Poet.” Fasano holds degrees in philosophy and poetry from Harvard University and Columbia University, and he is the Founder of Fasano Academy, “an initiative aimed at integrating the whole human being in an increasingly fractured world.”