Woman transformed,
Woman clothed with the sun,
Woman crowned with stars,
-from the Titles of Mary

my saints,
my stars,
my will,
i want the wisdom to disbelieve, that deliberation,
i want the will to not forgive, and how i want to turn away,
to retire my little prayers, go forth and sin no more, nor want to
or better, perhaps, to have learned to doubt long ago
my friends,
my own good sense,
my word

when i consider all that i must not know
remind me to suspect
and when the benefit of a doubt might do,
remind me
of all i forgive or overlook,
every semaphore, each gesture, each suggestion,
the thousand moments of pause, each pain ascribed to accident,
the specific humiliations,
the blame i can't avoid
i am my own worst enemy, if not the only one.
i'm no child, not an innocent, but an idiot,
that one who never learns.
it's laziness, a refusal to accept what's plain to anyone with eyes to see
so show me how to be impermeable,
as hard as marble, that cold,
pure, shot through with darkness, a scatter of mica
but impervious,
breaking cleanly on the grain,
cut away to reveal the truth
and pure, apart,
nobody's glad fool

Mirror of justice,
Throne of wisdom,
Cause of our joy,
Shrine of the Spirit,
Vessel of selfless devotion,
Mystical rose,
Tower of David,
Tower of ivory,
House of gold,
-from the Litany of Loreto