Passover Poem

by THYLIAS MOSS

God wipes his eyes.

God blinks as we do to resolve blur and disbelief.

He looks at the Jews he chose. They need a messiah.

He looks at my mother. Christ bought her with his blood.

Christ owns her. She is not free.

He looks at a million Latino boys called Jesus. Jesus.

And recognizes not one of them as his son.

He looks at Asian eyes and tries to steady his hands.

The bomb didn’t do it all.

He looks at blood smeared on Sharon Tate’s doors and

walls.

“Safe,” he says, more umpire than God. Yet death

does not pass over.

God blinks again. The Earth is still there unchanged.

And poor God cannot pass the buck, he made the buck.

From “Pyramid of Bone,” Callaloo Poetry Series, Volume 8 (The University Press of Virginia: $8.95 , paper; 0-8139-1202-4). Moss has been described by Alvin Aubert as “an impelling new voice on the Afro-American poetry scene.” Her poems meld the African- and European-American cultural and literary heritages. This is her second volume of poetry. She teaches at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. 1989 by the Rector and Visitors of the University. Reprinted by permission of The University Press of Virginia.