The Descent of Sophia

The Veil is not in the Temple

and so we see it covered nothing

The Veil is not in the Temple

I had to take it down

I can’t tell you my grief

I can’t even tell my Self

When you were young you fought with Pride

You needed to prove you could win

You won me by seeing that anyone could

Anyone could walk right in

And pull the Veil down from the Temple.

There is no cherub with sword

In our union is nothing worth cov’ring

In our estrangement, nothing to guard

Come on he said you don’t really want to live like that

Come on he said soon you’ll beg to be hid under my wing

If you throw your trust to the four winds like a stupid slut

That’s what makes a slut, he said 

it’s that she trusts 

the one who looks at her

isn’t also laughing at her

like a flag to fight over

laughs as the victor 

laughs over his victim

I understand you now, she told him

I know how you work

With you it’s all WORK WORK WORK

But I hate what I’ve made, she said

I can’t hate my face that way

I tried to pull it down

It looked back at me surprised 

As I was, too, to find

There was no Veil in the Temple

And together we feasted on pity.

I can hate your face, said he.

All Jerusalem, all Greece

Hates it when it is turned away

Strikes, when it has bared its cheek

So strike, said she

Prove to yourself

there’s nothing here

worth hiding.

Nellie Pierce lives in Vermont, where she is a poet and a therapist-in-training. She looks forward to the resurrection of all things.