Joseph: After The Angels

By Dominic Palmer

Who knows but that another seed of doubt

was planted by a neighbour’s lowered gaze,

or conversation stopped when he walked out

to join them in those inauspicious days?

What future here? Fashioning a life

from splinters of their pity, sense of scandal?

He must have wondered. But he loved his wife

and trusted her enough to take that mantle

in marrying her, teaching their boy his trade

of craft and sacrifice with block and file.

He had his vision too. And in those days,

who knows but that they shared a secret smile,

how God had planted that sweet seed of faith

now growing in them, as, in darkness, child?

---

Dominic Palmer grew up in Oxford, studied in Cambridge, and lives in Manchester. Having been a high-school English teacher for several years, he now works for a network of small churches. His poetry has previously been published by Amethyst Review and Ekstasis. Dominic and his wife have recently become parents for the first time, so he is currently quite sleep-deprived but full of wonder.