Diminished Responsibility

Her pregnancy, only minutes from term,
gave her the look of a tumbleweed
as she stumbled
through killing December cold.
Sally Ann band on windswept corner
marked the passage of one whose experience
was the cosmic opposite of their celestial joy:
''...crib for His bed
the little Lord..."

With labour pains almost constant
she turned into the alley,
sheltering in the shadow of
a green dumpster, which exhorted
a more affluent society to
"Keep our City Clean."
She squatted as her water broke,
and cursed her most recent companion
for throwing her out
when her condition
invalidated her use to him.
She blasted her last two rocks
in the lifeline of her pipe,
and suddenly
“God!”
it was done.

The investigative team
discovered the icy creche
near the area where
the Paras had found her,
collapsed,
in the street.
The rookie swore
when he opened
the dumpster,
quick tears freezing
on his cheeks,
while in the distance,
the Army concluded their ministry
with "O Holy Night."