Lyrics Becoming a Nun - Vanessa Daou

Becoming a Nun

On cold days
It is easy to be reasonable
To button the mouth against kisses
Dust the breasts
With talcum powder
& forget
The red pulp meat
Of the heart
On those days
It beats
Like a digital clock-
Not a beat at all
But a steady whirring
Chilly as green neon
Luminous as numerals in the dark
Cool as electricity
& I think:
I can live without it all-
Love with its blood pump
Sex with its messy hungers
Men with their peacock strutting
Their silly sexual baggage
Their wet tongues in my ear
& their words like little sugar suckers
With sour centers
On such days
I am zipped in my body suit
I am wearing seven league red suede boots
I am marching over the cobblestones
As if they were the heads of men
& I am happy
As a seven-year-old virgin
Holding Daddy’s hand
Don’t touch
Don’t try to tempt me with your ripe persimmons
Don’t threaten me with your volcano
The sky is clearer when I’m not in heat
& the poems
Are colder