and did you ordinary women mock
in liturgies of utterances contained,
their lines wrought by time-keeping cant of yours?
and did you burst from bullied syllabub,
or clockwise stiffen into winter walls?
the musicals of ghosts, midwives, and angels
echo, hollow, down stone-cold corridors.
and did you consecrate the spectacle,
coupling one who spoke, no, no, not nothing,
a stand-in that you killed at playing ‘swords?
to quell the bubbling spring by means of rain,
or merely quote the Mother’s name in vain?

she has been up at nights, considering
how to un-kiss this devil-gendered thing

//

(original, telescopic)