The Occasional Rite
Morning leaks through the blind-slats.
The kettle’s safe upon the stove; the breakfast
apples yield, crisp, to my little knifeblade.
But
where is my morning-altar? Who bakes my daily bread?
My palms are little lacquered bowls. Today is clean
of any event.
What’s a girl to do with a blank slate?
Spatter it with goat’s blood? Cover it with poppies?
Purity’s as difficult as mathematics; gentleness
is only pretty if it’s pure. To make your mark
you’ve got to shatter glass.
You’ll burn the morning down, and, scorched and sulphurous,
your hands will fill with ash and ember.
Your mouth will brim with blood and gleaming teeth,
and
all the earth will know your snarl, your vengeance.
But I’m a timid thing. The only blood
I’ll ever shed’s my own – a sheet
of paper-towelling round a finger. Red has run
through the white fibers, spreading: spiders or stars.
Breakfast is forgotten. A cry
when you have cut yourself is ordinary, isn’t it?
The peal of real bells? Who knows
what they call a prayer these days,
and what is only commonplace and holy.
