The House of the Perfects

Priests and commentators have objected to this term on the grounds that the women cannot with any certitude be classed as “Perfects”; preferring an altogether more cautious title such as “The place where young women, postulants, attempt perfection.”
     Dance, N., Christian Cults, New York, 1977, p.101.
 
 
 
But the locals call it The Pebble House.
 
We would assume a well inside the courtyard and there is talk of bushes –
a tangle of currant bushes whitening every spring but
no fruit softens on the branch. Are they white currants?
Or red? But they are hardly food, after all.
 
Sometimes hooligans or mothers fling figs or chocolate bars,
curfew-dodging silently, or sometimes one will shout
if the Gabriels are absent, but this is frowned on
and may result in conversations with the police.
 
Twenty years ago, folk came to see ropes hanging
down from each window – “sacred pigtails” Ozen said
in his poem on the subject – ropes hacked back and back each month,
until the stumps were given to the families as relics.
 
These days, each female’s weight is broadcast on TV
between the prayers and recipes and when one becomes Perfect
a priest will chant the verse all day on the Women’s Channel
“A stone will nourish if the appetite is holy” and a white bird is released in the
   Square.
 
The stones are smooth and round, found in mountain waterfalls
and brought to the city with great reverence. The first is given
when the woman discards her bleeding, the second when she dissolves
her breasts and the third when she grows a fine hair on her face and body.
 
One stone, the whitest, she places in her mouth. The second stone she takes
in her left hand, the third in her right, then she lies down on her bed.
So we are told. Because, of course, all this is hearsay. Some even say
the doors are never locked, that rice or burgers are daily provided.
 
Perfects are burnt, as men are, up in the mountains. Their bodies are not seen.
But the house must be full of stones, in drifts among the currant bushes,
choking the well, piled in corners, on stairs – enough to break your ankle –
white pyramids of round, sucked stones. They call it the Pebble House.
 

Carole Coates

first published in Other Poetry, Series 4 no. 1, 2010;
in collection, Swallowing Stones, 2012, Shoestring Press,
ISBN 978-1-9073565-3-7

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Reading

He can’t read it and he can read it
he can read bits of it anyhow but it’s hard
so his grandpa reads it every evening
 
and they discuss the Mississippi River
big and brown and rolling like the Humber
although grandpa says he thinks it must be wider
 
sometimes he tries to read it by himself
because he likes Huck Finn who has a father
who isn’t there either but there’s a footprint
 
where someone has stood for a long time
but this is as far as his grandpa has read
so he’s cheating and peeping ahead in the book
 
here’s a picture – Huck is opening the door
and a man is drinking from a bottle and glaring
his toes are showing through his boots
 
the man’s dirty and glaring     WHO IS HE?
he thinks he knows who the man is –
it’s tea-time but nobody’s here
 
he carries on reading skipping and puzzling
and it is Huck’s father – pap he calls him
he’s crept in the house and nobody knows
 
....where his face showed; it was white; not like another man’s white,
but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body’s flesh crawl –
a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white......
 
he slams the book shut and bolts from the room
hides by the stove in the kitchen peers under the table
it’s getting darker but nobody’s here
 
now footsteps coming nearer and soft mutterings
 
a yell of terror from the stove and his mother screams
Don’t do that – you could have killed me
 
but it’s all right now and later his grandpa reads
about Huck’s father – yes, he knew he was horrible
pap wants his money and keeps him prisoner
 
At night there’s a huge white toad which sits
in the damson tree and peers through his window
 

Carole Coates

winner of the Nottingham Open Poetry Competition 2011.

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Butcher

the butcher came to our house
with his big scissors and his knife
and four aunts to hold me down
he sliced me and trimmed me
all the place between my legs
carved out      scraped to the bone
 

Carole Coates

in collection, Swallowing Stones, 2012, Shoestring Press,
ISBN 978-1-9073565-3-7

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The woman who bought her school

and the girls are returning
every evening there are more of them
 
they’ve put on their furs
and pad under my trees
which are full of rain and stars
 
I am the Head now, Mother Superior
and the Head Girl and Captain of Sport
they told us we were all inferior
but now we write our own reports
 
we look younger
than our years
and we’re much stronger
 
the nuns are departed
some to cancer, some into summer dresses
 
the nuns, the nuns
creeping upstairs holding their rosary beads
to stop them clicking
 
the foghorn shouts at the sea
running and running along by the shore
the war memorial
raises its hand to ask a question
which we can answer
from our catechism
 
Grace is a supernatural gift of God
freely bestowed on us for our
sanctification and salvation
 
there is a great glass box placed over
the whole school and part of the garden
it is like a bell jar but square
 
my girls perch on every window sill
as I clank clank back from my morning stroll
with two full buckets from the fish harbour
for dinner after academic labour
 
and here’s the washroom
where Diane McDougal saw a vision
of the Virgin Mary in her blue cloak
but the nuns said it was
a soap dispenser
they gave her eau sucree
and a clove to suck
 
Pythagorus’ theorum and the Periodic Table
subjunctive and subjective and synecdoche
zeugma and Zurich – that’s for today
 
our minds are sufficiently malleable
and will soon become knowledgeable
The Prince of Wales will give us a medal
 
but the girls are bad
and sing at the moon
 
Sister Philomena, Sister Jocadena, Sister Radagunda
wait at the window adjusting their glasses
preparing to spit at the working classes
 
we have no politics now
 
Marysia Mullen said
there is no evidence
in the material universe
for the existence of God
 
but look
 
the floor blossoms in orange flowers
the walls are flecked like wings
the roof unfurls curving out like a fern
 
see how the house opens itself to the light
the purple light of grace is flooding in
 

Carole Coates

published in Smiths Knoll, 49, Jan 2012

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