Angela Williams
The Murmuration
Handel’s Zadok the Priest fills the abbey
with music. Goose-pimples rise on my arms.
Behind a screen, my new King
is anointed with sacred oil.
Inside me, a different sovereign skulks.
Friendly, deadly tentacles
expand his realm,
silent and unseen.
I will worship my Ozymandias
at the Temple of Ologies; Oncology
Psychology, Urology, Gynaecology.
My spirit jibs at the revolving door
of their cathedral and joins roosting
birds calling sotto voce, Come with us, stay
with us, come with us, stay with us.
Inside the whale-belly building
I am just a clump of cells.
A bar code announces my
presence, grants me an audience
with mercurial gods.
This cult of Ologies is hard to leave.
Tenacious as a terrier
shaking what’s left of me in its jaws.
No longer wife, sister, friend, dancer, writer,
merely black and white stripes.
I bawl out my humanity in a side room.
A cult member promises to make me better.
Can I believe her? Or is she reeling
me further in with skilled, surgeon’s hands?
The cathedral spits me out into fading daylight.
Crisp air enlivens my cheeks. Tree branches
are alive with song. Starlings spread iridescent wings,
prepare to head east. Soon
the murmuration will begin.