Her Book Poem by Malcolm Evison

Loose pages from time
collated and combined
to form a seal. ‘Fidelity’

italicized, illumined
on the manuscript –
an idol or ideal

once thought immutable.
Priestess enfleshed
as traditor, she stumbles

on her many tentacled
equivocation –
recalls the ritual

rending of the veil.
No longer able to maintain
her former love’s sectarian claim

she riffles through the pages
of her life. A few words
underlined, her youth transcribed

on parchment; genial memories
transformed into mysteries –

a facile binding
of a former liberty.