Eating Laurices

BETH OAST WILLIAMS

Pope Gregory said it was okay
to eat fetal rabbits during Lent
because their watery wombs
made them fish, not meat

the most delicate food cut
from an unharmed mother
never baptized at birth
like babies in church

I must be a Pisces, as well my sister
who never stopped swimming
she was killed by a doctor’s
rod and reel

strangers say I’ve a smudge
on my forehead
not knowing the ash
is dust from a breeding doe.