Sisters

All over the world, the girls
are shaving their heads, sweet
anchorites with no cells.
Like their sister before them,
they too mortify their flesh --
          nose and nipple pierced
          ear and bellybutton.
Above feet sandaled or bare,
their fervid faces glow,
eyes glitter.
Only black adorns them.
They speak with smiles and silence,
bodies worn with longing.
No earthly food delights them.

In the curve and whorl
of their supplicant flesh --
pink and ivory, mauve and bronze --
they wait, as their sisters did,
for the god to come,
to tranform
their bleeding corruptible bodies
to planes of pure light.

-- Mary Ann Larkin