guilt

she rests on the floor
beside the low abutting table
as she cries into her panties
washing them with her tears
oh,when will it ever end?
she asks herself a thousand times
am i going insane?
what am i to do?

and for what seems a thousand times
she untangles the rosary in her dress pocket and  
whispers the hail mary close to her covered breasts

the remembered sight of the town butcher's lower leg
as he bent to pick up her dropped money
it brought her off today
the wiggly scroll of hairs on the shiny skin his pant hike innocently revealed

she lays her panties on the floor
they are so damp
just a few minutes ago they
held her crazily digging fingers
took the repeated pokes of the table's jutting angle
which finally caused her to vise her legs
against the raping ecstasy

then after she had removed the panties in
the transgressive silence of the room,
evening darkness falling accusingly in corners,
she could not control a slow burst of repentant  tears
that made her clutch the silken pink up to her eyes,
praying the spillage cleanse her of her wrongdoing,
ease the panicking of her thumping heart,
and extinguish the blazing of her twitching loins