I Don’t Believe I Have a Soul

I don’t believe I have a soul. I salve

My heart by contemplating another

Wider doctrine. It teaches that I have

A winning hand. Each soul has a brother

Opposing him in color. Flame kings find

Themselves spread out with black kings right beside

Them. (Never mind the queens, since they are blind

To male considerations. Queens are eyed

With hard black stares, blank glares of iron maids.)

My suits are made up solely of wild hearts,

Hard diamonds and clubs. There are no spades

Among male souls to open our blood parts.

00 My many souls defy the others. They

0000Splay inside my chest in masculine array.

“and this refutes the error that maintains

that—one above the other—several souls

can flame in us” Dante, Purgatorio, Canto IV, lines 5-7