SELF-PORTRAIT
AS A CHARTRES CATHEDRAL SCULPTURE OF A WOMAN READING, NORTH PORCH, EAST
ARCHIVOLT
I
come alive when no one is looking.
I
like to wander around old places like this.
I
could talk for hours about rose windows and relics –
the
Sancta Camisa here, the Holy Shroud
in Turin,
Saint
Teresa of Avila’s finger, Saint Catherine of Siena’s head,
and
my favorite, the missing Holy Prepuce.
I’ve
been told I’m an old soul from a different time,
been
called “special,” “unusual,” “studious,” and “odd.”
Women
who like to read and write get that a lot.
Given
the choice between a party
and
a lecture on ancient manuscripts,
I’ll
take the manuscripts every time.
I
love the smell of candles blown out, and of croissants
freshly
baked from the boulangerie nearby;
I
love the crackle of their outer crusts
as
they are broken apart.
I
almost had sex in the North Tower once,
but
my sartorial choices hindered full consummation.
People
often come through my door to be healed.
I
hear them whispering prayers as they enter.
I
can look at people’s pain without flinching now,
but
not without feeling. I am soft inside.
My
faith in what they hold sacred here
changed
long ago, though slowly, over years,
but
I am still moved to tears by Adeste
Fideles
at
Christmas, when every candle is lit,
and
the great organ plays, the people sing Adoremus,
and
the thurifer leads the procession
swinging
his censer, the cross behind him
held
high so all the people can see.
My
friendships and loves are few but deep.
My
separations from those I love
merely
geographical.
I’ve
been reading for about a thousand years.
I’m
slow. Late-blooming. And what you might call
a
night-owl, most productive when the world is slumbering.
I
have to lie on my right side to fall asleep.
The
gal holding the baby dragon on a door
of
the West Façade says I snore.
Before
dawn I sneak into the rectory for coffee.
I
like it light and sweet.
In
the gift shop I choose a new book sometimes
and
leave the previous one behind.
Infinity
can be measured with my books-to-read list
and
the stories and poems I will write.
THE
LADY AND THE FALCON
By
day, a falcon; by night a man.
This
was the bargain you struck
to
be with me. Your longing
takes
the shape of talons, wings,
the
sharpest eye, the broadness
of
your shoulders compressed
into
this silent watcher circling
overhead,
until the darkening sky
can
bring you close. Come to me,
my
wingéd love; press your flesh to mine
while
I can feel its warmth upon my skin,
while
your lips are soft enough,
your
breath no different from my own,
its
heat between us fire and light.
Your
arms, your arms are my soaring,
my
sky, my shelter, and my flight.
The
lightening clouds are dread, dread.
At
dawn, you leave. I watch you bear
my
heart away, shape-shifter
with
your arms outstretched.
Your
wings unfolded embrace and bear
and
cover my pain, for it has the shape
of
your wings, of my heart.
BEHIND THE BLUE DRAPE
the secret life of an anaesthesiologist
Invisible
wings aren’t easy to hide in an operating room.
They're
constantly brushing against supply carts,
anaesthesia
machines, and laparoscopy towers. I'm convinced
I
inadvertently feather-dust people with the downy edges
when
I don't keep them folded tightly against my scapulae.
One
of my colleagues is a centaur – like Chiron
who
mentored Asclepius. I also know a sphinx,
a
gryphon, a yeti, and a water nymph, all drawn
to
the healing arts, as liminal beings often are.
We
walk around the hospital and keep our incandescence
hidden,
but once in a while our wings and furs
and
shining scales glimmer into view, or a whiff
of
ancient long-lost flora wafts over the surgical field.
Sometimes
in the call room at night,
when
I’m by myself and the pager is quiet,
I
unfurl my wings to their fullest span – aah! –
one
tip at the window, the other at the door,
their
amethyst plumage woven out of wounds
of
years past, and I look in the mirror and see
my
family’s wingéd women looking back –
ancestors
and their descendants, whose power
to
shapeshift through songs and words is written
like
a spell into our molecular selves.
The
cousin whose oral arguments in court
jailed
a disgusting congressman.
The
daughter whose otherworldly music
and
lyrics can break hearts and heal them
all
at once. My grandmothers. My mother.
They
reach out their hands, palms toward my heart,
bestowing
on me lakas ng loob, so when
the pager
goes
off, and I have to fold my wings back in
and
go out into the world again, to give breath
so
that others might breathe, I fly.
