The Convent Was Not Designed for This (Julie d'Aubigny)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
The body
is heavier
than she expected
which is the first lesson
of every plan
that involves
a recently deceased nun
and a corridor
and a bed
that belongs to someone
you love enough
to commit
three felonies
before breakfast

She carries the weight
the way her father
taught her
to carry a blade —
low
balanced
with the understanding
that the carrying
is the easy part
and the putting down
is where the skill lives

The convent
smells like tallow
and lavender
and the specific silence
of women
who chose this life
on purpose
She did not choose this life
She chose the woman
in room six
and the choosing
required
a habit
and a vow
and a shovel
and eventually
a match

[Chorus]
She laid the dead woman
in the living woman's bed
and lit the room
the way you light a candle
for a saint
except the saint
is alive
and waiting
at the garden wall
and the prayer
is an arson
and the arson
is a love letter
written in the only language
the convent
could not
censor

[Verse 2]
Before the convent
she fought three men
outside a tavern
because the three men
objected to her singing
and her answer
to objection
was always
the same shape —
narrow
steel
and through
the shoulder

She visited one of them
the next morning
to check the wound
and left
as his lover
which is the specific talent
of a woman
who stabs you
and then
asks how you slept

The king pardoned her
twice
because the king
found her amusing
which is either
the privilege
of talent
or the privilege
of being
the kind of beautiful
that makes the law
lose its train of thought
mid-sentence

[Bridge]
(celeste — the music box in the burning room)
Her father
trained the pages
and trained her
alongside them
She learned to read
and she learned to fence
and she learned
that the difference
between the two
is that books
will change your mind
and swords
will change
the minds of others

She sang contralto
on the stage
where they said
the most beautiful voice
in the world
lived
and the most beautiful voice
in the world
also carried
a dead nun
down a hallway
at two in the morning
and these two facts
do not contradict
They harmonize

[Final Chorus]
She laid the dead woman
in the living woman's bed
and lit the room
and ran
with the girl
for three months
until the girl
got bored
or she got bored
or the road
got narrow enough
for only one

And the judges
who sentenced her to burn
had to write the sentence
in the masculine
because the law
had no procedure
for a woman
who did
what she did
which was everything
they reserved for men
including the loving
of women
which the law
could not even
spell
in the feminine

She died
at thirty-three
in a convent
which is either
the punchline
or the moral
depending on whether
you believe
a woman
who burned one down
at twenty
has the right
to rest in one
at the end

The corridor
still smells
like tallow
and lavender
and something
that used to be
on fire

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