Secret Dealings, by Rose Mary Boehm

Black Iris, by Georgia O'Keeffe (USA) 1926.

Secret Dealings
 
And when the light has been taken,
when a blanket of black envelops the world,
when sounds are muffled by the thickness of dark,
that’s when she smiles.
No witnesses to this outrageous display
of unseemly hilarity.
She is the mother superior of the midnight mass
conducted in secret in chambers made of stones
planted at the holy site millennia ago.
She offers the bowl
to the sister whose bell-like giggles
earlier filled the clearing with joy.
 
A shy moon lifts itself
to rise above the clouds.

Rose Mary Boehm
​
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of Tangents, a full-length poetry collection published in the UK in 2010/2011, her work has been widely published in US poetry journals (online and print). She was three times winner of the now defunct Goodreads monthly competition. Recent poetry collections: From the Ruhr to Somewhere Near Dresden 1939-1949 : A Child’s Journey and Peru Blues or Lady Gaga Won’t Be Back.