Dance, Vickie Sue and Mary!
Vickie Sue Metzger was raped and murdered in June 1990 alone near a rest stop in Tennessee.
Mary Byron was raped and then murdered a few weeks later in December 1993 in Louisville, KY in her car in a mall parking lot.
Poem by Mary Sue Barnett
She stands at the
Mouth of the cave
Her name is Mystery
And she summons you
To stand there too
“Reach!” she says
Your heart and hand
Into the depths
For Vickie and Mary
To touch their death
And to touch their life
“Look!” she says
The men’s rage, it
Howls like a typhoon
Wind, and the women’s
Fragile safety vanquished
Do you see God?
“See!” she says
The men rape, like
A burning fire, searing
Saltpetre driven deep
Into their soft pores
Do you see God?
“Watch!” she says
As one man pulls a trigger
And another crushes bones
The earth quakes with
Brute force and bullets
That swallow and eat
The two women
Do you see God?
Mystery is her name
She stands, arms in
Orans position, at
The mouth of the cave
And she summons you
To stand there too
“Hear!” she says
God is not
In the fire, nor
In the quake
God is not
In the wind, nor
On the plate
For God is in
The bodies of
Vickie Sue and Mary
Consumed with them
By black darkness
And ashen white
Of violent death
God is never in
Male annihilators
But co-mingles
With the women in
The nothingness of
Rape and Femicide
Mystery persists at
The mouth of the cave
And she summons you
To stand there too
“Come out!” she calls forth
The two women and God
To dance the dance of
No fear, No pain
Together, inextricably
God in the women’s bodies
Vivid and mobile, dipping
Spinning and turning
Under the pink eternal sky
Where they become new
Ever free and alive
Vickie Sue, Mary, and God
In the loving arms of Mystery
This is where God is
In the bodies of women
Celebrate, and then
Rebuild the world.
High Calling
As a Hospital Chaplain, I continue to see females brought into the Level 1 Trauma Center with violent wounds perpetrated by men. And I am aware that ordained Catholic men, locally, nationally, and internationally, have no commitment to women and girls who are wounded and murdered (Femicide) every day because they are female. I wrote this piece during brief breaks of back-to-back night shifts in the Trauma Center.
Poem by Mary Sue Barnett
A Psalm of Hope
for Catholic priests in the
all-male hierarchy
Who among you is
Hearing the cry?
Where are you?
I want to see you.
Which cry?
They ask—
The one rising
From the throat
As her heart
Melts like wax.
Trauma does this.
Violence also makes bones
All out of joint. And
Suffocates her.
Who is hearing
Her cry?
Does it wreck
Your conscience
That you have negated her?
Where are you?
I want to see you.
When you hear
The cry, do you
Go near it?
I want to know.
Go near the cry,
Please! Press and
Hold within your
Chest the injustices
Inflicted on her
Ought this be the
Epicenter of your
True manhood in the Catholic Church of
The 21st century?
When you absorb
Her cry, does it disturb
Your soul, do your bones
Ache alongside hers
Trembling with death?
As you tremble
Do you pour yourself
Out like water
For she who thirsts
For truth and dignity
For breath and future?
My God, My God,
Why have you forsaken me?
This is the cry.
Pour yourself out
Like water, please!
Lavish the church with
Healing pools for girls to
Mend their wounds and
Women to heal their
Fractures, for traumatized
Souls to rise to life
The world over.
Then you will
Truly know Eucharist.
Eucharist can never be
A Sunday morning
Tea party.
Go!Listen to the violated.
Go! Risk losing yourself.
Be done with your
Juvenile homilies and
Parochial privileges.
Ring the death knell of
Narcissistic spirituality,
Clear the paten and
Empty the chalice.
To follow Compassion’s plea
To leap into darkness
To be transformed by
The suffering of God.
I want to see you
Show the world
You are a real priest.
Remove the garb—
I want to see you
Show the world your
Complete nakedness— The Nakedness of Christ,
Murdered and Risen
Prophet directing
Your soul.
If not now in this 21st
Century, then you know
Nothing of the Living,
Beating, Humble
Heart of the church.
