Diane Speakman
Chateauverdun, c. 1240
‘heretical ladies...who were captured, who removed their make-up and were burned at the stake.’ Montaillou, p.281
Their eyes led you to this.
Fournier’s* talons clawed,
pinioned you to cell walls.
Alesta and Serena, in your shrouds,
what do you do before they come?
Wipe the colour from your cheeks
to meet Her plain.
What do you think,
as the dames screech and sing
the smoke chokes your gullet?
Of your children, left behind?
Yourselves as girls, hot in the hay,
freckled with dappling light,
watching the sunflowers turn,
while there was sun and time?
*Head of the Inquisition, in Carcassonne
Page(s) 57
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