if i were but a sister of mercy
i’d have no disgrace in this death of a bed
if i were but a sister of mercy
i’d have not the regrets of love unsaid
if i were but a sister of mercy
i’d have not the rot of love unwed
if i were but a sister of mercy
all that is outside would not fight its way
to coal in my carrion heart
if i were but a sister of mercy
i’d not live this perpetual death of the soul and the flesh
x
if i were but a dove of peace
i’d sit on the left hand of my found father
if i were but a dove of peace
i’d look from my perch on all the less others
if i were but a dove of peace
i’d know air less fetid, less crowded
than that i share in these cloisters, these dungeons, these chambers
traded plush for poor
but lacking nonetheless
each chamber of house or heart all void and lifeless lacking in vent
if i were but a dove of peace
i’d not have traded fathers and therein killing one for the un-kissing of the other
if i were but a dove of peace
i would not take the word and deeds of a would-been saint
and used them against father and mother
if i were but a dove of peace
i’d less impoverish the souls beneath me
i’d less cage them in soul-killing and eye-rheuming piety
and their fingers would not crack
and their breath would come easy
and their step might spring at meadows
and their gaze might rise above these killing rooms,
above these cold-burning candles
shorn of these stifling contemplations
these perpetual, circular, contemplations
these devotions devoid of life
devoid of meaning
devoid of the will free to render them seeming
with the pensity of sincerity, instead of the paucity of obedience
if i were but one of assumption
i’d be able to fight off this consumption
the catarrh in these lungs
the gryppe on this heart that has such blood running soon from the doors of this nunnery
out the doors,
through the bars
into the blind streets
into the streets blind to gore from this nunnery
if i were a sister of charity
i’d take him by the strong jaw and weak heart
and bend him to my lips
and bend him to my breasts
and bind him to my hips
and take out the lust and love of ploughshares
against the skin soft of these my proteges
and not wither them
and not worry out their hair
and not weary out the grasses of their hearts to straw upon our stone floors
which always burns white for this straw always dry
for no liquid but that in the lungs allowed herein these cloisters
and cages i’ve built for my sisters in mercy
and him escaping his manhood to bestiality and not to me
and winning canons from crop-haired men in these shorn times of death
inside this city of plenty
where leather is worked into wallets and wonders
while hearts are tanned-well into plates of cuttlefish fit only for the bottoms of footwear
for the stepping
and the canons and the laurels and wreaths of peace mere bangles on death,
on the man i would love
and there are no saints
only he who took me from my father,
saying “i’ll supplant him … you’ll need no other”
then commanded “neither you nor i shall have what we seek”
plait the skin and jerk the meat
and sleep on stone floors in coats of burlap apart
this robust body now dried to jerk,
the last step is it fades to white smoke,
falls back to earth
and we will celebrate the new pope’s new birth
as we settle into the folds of the earth
graveless, gormless
shameless and formless,
dead before our parents
them forced to watch us wither and die
and powerless to say where we will lie
with nothing to grasp and no place to cry.
