Maria's described as
daughter of a mole-catcher,
as Margaret Thatcher is somehow
daughter of a greengrocer,
as the things our fathers catch or grow
become an easy way to name us.
Her father when he found her
thrust the blunt of a spade
through one of her eyes
quite accidentally
as he scrabbled down the grain to find
where she'd rotted seven months.
When they found who had done it
he was boiling four eggs for his tenants,
all still in curlers and robes at the kitchen table.
"My fate is just!"
he said, and
"May God have mercy on my soul."
He hung,
and afterwards they took apart his skull
to trace the fault lines, finding
secretiveness, acquisitiveness,
destructiveness, imitativeness;
the things that her skull were are not described.
