The Thing is Violent

Gwendolyn MacEwen

Self, I want you to be
violent and without history,
for we've rehearsed too long our ceremonial ballet
and I fear my calm against your exquisite rage.

I do not fear that I will go mad
but that I may not, and the shadows of my sanity
blacken out your burning; act once
and you need not act again-
give me no ceremony, scars are not pain.

The thing is violent, nothing precedes it,
it has no meaning before or after-
sweet wounds which burn like stars,
stigmata of the self's own holiness,
appear and plot new zodiacs upon the flesh.

Carol Wilson