Joanna

We do not know
 This Joanna,
 The one with the two Marys
 Whose wild grief
 Must have kept them up all night,
 Drove them to a sealed tomb
 On a strange Spring morning
 Because there was nothing else
 For them to do.
 Maybe Joanna, too,
 Knew such extravagant love,
 Hid it beneath her respectable cloak
 Until those bright-gowned men
 Reminded her that life
 Could not be found
 As long as death devours us.
 Maybe they saw what she had hidden.
 Maybe they saw
The love in her shielded eyes,
 Heard the remnant of a song
 In her broken heart,
 Knew that none of those men--
 Not Peter, not John, not Thomas--
 Was so ready for a
 Resurrection.

--Timothy Haut, Easter, 2013