Virgins in Self-sacrificial Auto da Fé
“His ‘magic’ does not take account of what
cannot be known.”* His beauty does not care
Who worships it with fragrantly white-hot
Devotion at a burning altar where
Our ribs are offered up as incense to
The flames of hair and muscle, eyes and nose,
His shoulders, hips and thighs that we each view
As necromantic flares. Our lips compose
Frail, ineffectual prayers for singeing in
The holocaust his loveliness inspires.
If we could go to bed with him and sin
With gem-like flash, we’d stake ourselves in fires.
But we will never know his secret parts,
Their magic, or their pain in unwed parts.
*Andrew Motion, Keats, p. 436