Said the Angel to Mary:

God would like a Word with you.

She thought a conversation

and so said yes.

But the Word became flesh

and never stopped talking

until an unpleasant death

stole away his breath.

Then Mary, the empty nester,

took up watercolours,

and in the sunset years of life

learned to smuggle stretches of sky

onto little canvasses,

which old Joe roughly framed

in his dusty workshop

that sighed out turpentine

whenever he opened the door.