I MET A WOMAN WHO USED TO BE A WHORE
I met a woman who used to be a whore
and when she told me, I was staggered
and felt my face go red, then pale,
and all I could ask was Why.
But when she told me it made perfect sense
because what we do for love often is
senseless, irreproachable, a gift of
the spirit to someone who may not deserve it,
but we make it anyway because it's Grace
and it lives to heal the broken pieces
we carry inside us, that punch like awls
through leather we only think is soul itself,
soft and yielding, sweet to scent and touch:
but carry the memory of the tannery reek,
of poison that makes at last something soft,
compliant, a gift we should have never had.
|