the nun and the rooster
(for W.B. Yeats)
BIO
Born in Lubbock, but raised in Plano, Heather Flores lived there for 32 years and then in the fall of 2003, she moved with her newlywed husband down to the subtropical paradise between the sublime Everglades and the healing waters of the Atlantic. She's a writing consultant at FAU’s Center for Excellence in Writing. She has the best husband and menagerie-family on the planet. She loves mermaids, her kitchen, the Star Wars trilogy, saying her animal-children’s’ names throughout the day like Gregorian chants, Ticonderoga Noir pencils, San Antonio, Fort Myers, champagne on Friday nights, Big Tex, and being alive.
peony seeds comfort the nun’s small hand
as she steps out of the convent
light as a gray kitten on a stone wall
compliant as a lunambulist
(she never plants when the moon has an evil position
and she falls when the moon is young)
the moon shows her night face
and the lawn changes its character
the midnight grass awakens the nun’s bright white feet
caresses the hem of her pleated habit
as she floats down a river of ancient voices
the new moon stares over the trees
her shadow of wholeness clearly drawn
she knows the ancient voices upon which the nun floats
she hears them too…
16th century Indian concubine bedizened and perfumed to her king's liking
Mexican brothel girl comforting as a pumpkin empanada on Sunday morning
Massachusetts Puritan with fire under her austere dress
ivory-faced housewife with perfect beribboned blonde hair
Danielle Bowden in blue tank, pink panties
the Young Girl with glossy red lips in silk frock, man’s fedora
Marie Duplessis in long cashmere shawl but naught besides
…the moon cloaks herself in silvery clouds
tries to quiet the moaning in her pear-womb
the nun’s womb moans, melodious with the moon’s
perfectly in tune, they warble
their sonorous moan stirs the slumbering rooster at the base of a full tree on the convent lawn
his sable and sienna feathers rustling like cabbage palms in the wind
he opens one amber eye
takes a long flagon drink of her pretty luminescent feet
deeply inhales the thick tropical air
startled the nun lets the seeds fall from her dainty hand
he acts upon her soul
by the breath of his suggestion
and she stretches out on the grass under the trees
he eases one sable wing inside her pleats
raises her skirts with his other wing
and the heady scent of dusting powder rises from her thighs to titillate his nostrils
over her head she
raises her bare white arms
(and in the moonlight, downed with light brown hair)
one slender white wrist over the other
the grass tickles her fine down
and the rooster contemplates the nun-girl whose offer is his need
then pushes his
feathered glory between her loosening thighs
holds her wrists with the wing that raised her skirts
their coupling makes peony and rose spill from her apron pocket
and their obstreperous joy rises up
filling the bowl of sky until the stars spill over
and cataract down on the writhing couple below