To Akhmatova's Shroud (revised)

“A poet is someone from whom nothing must be taken
and to whom nothing must be given,” you claimed,
taunted as “half-nun, half-harlot.”

With no desire to go to heaven, having lived here in hell,
up there the “secret of secrets” left you
to qualify you for sainthood.

Who’s not a saint in what this world’s become? Down here,
where slaughter continues, our sins absolved by those who are
divided: half-priest, half-pimp.

(13 October 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander