XIV
Love’s Baptism
I’m ceded, I’ve stopped being theirs;The name they dropped upon my faceWith water, in the country church,Is finished using now,And they can put it with my dolls,My childhood, and the string of spoolsI’ve finished threading too.
Baptized before without the choice,But this time consciously, of graceUnto supremest name,Called to my full, the crescent dropped,Existence’s whole arc filled upWith one small diadem.
My second rank, too small the first,Crowned, crowing on my father’s breast,A half unconscious queen;But this time, adequate, erect,With will to choose or to reject.And I choose—just a throne.