Vessel, Vassal
        An analysis of dental plaque illuminates
        the forgotten history of female scribes.
                The Atlantic

Fire took the scrolls and codices, the illuminated Hours,
all inkpots and penknives, slanted desks and sconces,

even the oyster shells and wooden bowls for mixing paint.
Yet your secret's in your teeth, bits of blue pigment

on your incisors, color of Mary's cloak in the manger,
crushed lapis from Afghan heights via the Silk Road—

testament to your skill with fine brushes from squirrel
you'd lick to a point for a clean edge. From matins

to compline, you hardly saw the sky. Yet daily the angel
came to your desk, daily the evangelists—

John's eagle, Mark's lion, the winged man of Matthew, Luke's ox.
Did they comfort you in the season without sun,

your fingers gloved from cold? The demon acedia
spread like pestilence from this labor

to lift the sinful body in prayer,
strangely alchemized from the body's scruff:

earwax to stabilize eggwash, lead mixed with dung
steeped in vinegar to invent the purest white.

You the vessel, the handmaiden, the vassal the abbess
displayed to the wealthiest lords till your eyes dimmed

and spine slanted like your script, pocks of blue on your teeth
from Noah's flood, the River Jordan, Jesus walking on the sea.

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Copyright © 2020 Karen Kovacik All rights reserved
from New Letters
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission