Two Poems

Annette Spaulding-Convy

THERE WERE NO RULES ABOUT UNDERWEAR

My friend, the Carmelite, could only wear white
               non-bikini panties, laceless bras,

but my Order was progressive—red satin, cut
             to show some hip, a midnight-blue Wonderbra

hidden under my habit. The fathers were perceptive, not priest
              fathers, but men who flirted with me

while their daughters lit Virgin
              of Guadalupe candles in the chapel alcove,

men like the firefighter, who ran into my bedroom
              the summer night I slept nude, flames

in the cloister attic. I pulled the sheet around my body
              as he looked at black lace on the floor—

I need to feel your walls to see if they're hot.

IN THE CONVENT WE BECOME CLOUDS

I lived with women who didn't move
their hips,

but slid like mist
through hallways and chapels,

their curves drowned
in a habit's straight, white sea.

When one of them said,
you walk like a lumberjack,

I wondered why
I hadn't learned to float,

my black pumps
still causing this body to shake

and surface, say woman
during silent prayer.

There are things
we can't offer up—

breasts, lips, voice
swung like an ancient ax,

the way we receive communion
on our wet tongues

so that even the oldest priest
will blush.

"In the Convent We Become Clouds" previously published in Pontoon #7: An Anthology of Washington Poets (Floating Bridge Press).

Annette Spaulding-Convy

Annette Spaulding-Convy lives on Puget Sound in WA State. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Crab Orchard Review, the Seattle Review, and Pontoon #7 and #8: An Anthology of Washington State Poets.

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