Unsexed [Why is it that whenever I have a ton of stuff to do, I suddenly have a poem to write?]

Unsexed

Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,

And fill me from the crown to the toe topful.

--Macbeth (I.v.40-42)

I read once that cloistered nuns,

When caught in the torrents of desire,

Would grind up the buds of roses

And drink their pulp, in order

To abate lustful cravings.

Their penitence sheathed

In self-denying acts,

They found salvation in an Order;

In a balance, finely crafted

Of holy love--of chaste touch.

Crushing their lust to pulp,

They drank full the very pap

Of the un-budded passions

Which they denied themselves,

Clipped before blossom's flourish.

I can see them,

Their silver chalices

Of blush liquid

Tipped back on pale lips,

Drinking a world of sin away,

As Yam, god of the sea-

The world his goblet, tipped

Back on vast lips-

Drank the sea's roaring wake.

How did it taste?

Was their liquid lust sweet?

Did it burn as they swallowed,

Dross rising like froth

Away from their golden flesh,

Burned holy in denial's fire?

I, too, drink to holiness,

Have cloistered and denied,

Skimmed sin's dross, and strong-willed

The passion of my wiles. I try

To follow suit, seven self-flagellating nuns,

Painfully, as they rise above.

--Alicia (2010)