Azuzena ('Purity') Poem by Margie Cronin

August
and the white lilies are born
with me.
By day I am carving men in stone;
of a night I bake pastry
into shells
where the fish might swim
and settle their bones
like new fossils.
I have notoriety.
For years
they have been calling my breasts
gold
and my body pregnant.
Orants!
I never have been on my knees
and capture the sun
like dew
with my hands wrapped about
my own creation
and my face like clustering
glass.
There is no blood here I say
to the prayerful, but all the same
a bloodless war.