Lecture Notes

That if I purged indulgence from my life 

I’d be pure		truth would enter me.

No novels. No sex. No brushing my long 

black hair till it shines. & each aggression 

within me at once forgiven. Severe in its grace 

and silence, my forgiveness. & silence,

what waited after being a woman,

being a monk, being human. 

What I wouldn’t understand until coiled 

inside it. & even then, I couldn’t tell you

what it meant if I felt so moved,

so just, if I remembered how to speak.