1
The voice of Arcuvelvia was clear
As from the corridor she spoke to me,
“Just pass your habit through the slot right here
We’ll have it cleaned as clean as clean can be.”
2
So I did off my biliments of black,
My lingerie immaculately white,
And placed them folded in a tidy pack
In a receptacle that had a light
3
And pivot also. The device revolved.
The nurses took the habit. The device,
Though, never swiveled back. I was involved
Just then with my chemise but for a trice.
4
I heard the nurses’ footfalls as they went.
I tried the knob. It was completely locked.
So after while, my energy all spent,
I lay in bed. My clock just ticked and tocked,
5
Till I was dreaming dreams of sweet delight,
Transported to a never-never land.
I slept long hours throughout that fateful night.
At length awakened by blue morning’s hand.
6
I ate a breakfast brought me by a maid,
And donned a floor-length robe o’er my chemise.
My apprehension was somewhat allayed
As I sat in a chair and took my ease.
7
My vestibule was like a sally port.
There were two doors around two yards apart.
They formed a tiny chamber of a sort,
Which was embellished with consummate art.
8
All of a sudden then the inner door,
Which had stood open all night long, slid closed.
And momently, though it was closed before,
The outer opened and the room exposed.
9
A car of brass, inverted frail upon
Four wheels of steel, did roll the room into.
It parked inside the vestibule anon
And then the outer door slid quickly to.
10
The inner door now opened once again.
A door in the conveyance also did.
A voice commanded me to enter then,
And then the inner door, now closing, slid.
11
The car door now did swivel shut and click.
The outer door now opened up once more.
The car into the corridor rolled quick,
Advancing towards the elevator door.
12
The outer door slid shut again I saw,
All automatically, robotically.
Obedient to electronic law,
All mathematically, methodically.
13
Without that I should utter any word,
The elevator opened and the car
Rolled in as if just nothing had occurred
That wasn’t commonplace both near and far.
14
Adown we zoomed as fast as sound in air.
Till on floor zero we were leveling.
The updraft had uplifted my long hair,
But it dropped back without disheveling.
15
Next, out the wider door beside the doors
Revolving at the entrance I did roll.
The car, as easily as on waxed floors,
On concrete sidewalks managed dale and knoll,
16
Unto a cone, reflecting copp’ry beams,
Five hundred meters tall, the car advanced.
The glistens and the glimmers, glints and gleams,
Upon the muted lustrous spandrels danced.
17
At once into the vast interior
The car drove on regardlessly of me.
I quickly rose to floors superior
A theatre of surgery to see.
18
I knew it! Yes, I knew it! Yes, I knew!
An operation was to be performed.
A patient who had done as I would do
Discovered sexuality reformed.
19
She even could get pregnant here in Ung.
So wondrous is our technological
Ability we fashion heart or lung
And even parts gynecological.
20
Meseemed the cryptic, learnèd muttering
Back in Mecnita was in reference
To this, whereof I had been shuddering
But kept my silence out of deference,
21
When King and Queen had talked upon the phone
To Sister Olezconia, great nun,
Still at Defdefa Convent built of stone,
Ere she unto Mecnita had begun.
22
I speculated surgeons would appear
An anesthetic to administer.
They’d tell me there was nothing I should fear,
Nought that was perilous or sinister.
23
However, in a moment, I did see
A single stately lady doctor come.
A surgeon’s mask and cap of white wore she.
But when she neared, her visage struck me dumb!
24
Although her face was covered partially,
’Twas Ajinblambia in white attire!
I was no rival for her martially,
So to escape I didn’t dare aspire.
25
Before I knew it I was breathing gas,
While drowsier and drowsier I grew.
How swiftly did those sev’ral hours pass!
How long I lay unconscious I scarce knew.
26
But when I woke I found myself a girl,
With pretty little breasts and rounded hips.
My beard was gone, my silky hair did swirl,
There was more curvature upon my lips.
27
I looked into a mirror in the room.
I scarcely could believe what I beheld.
I’d been transfigured. Now I had a womb.
My masculinity had been dispelled.
28
I was quite wroth, indignant as could be,
Inflamed, resentful, full of evil spite.
My rage, though, lasted only minutes three
Until I understood that all my might
29
Availed not to redeem me from my straits.
For nothing could I do except succumb
Unto the laws and statutes of the fates,
However into being they had come.
30
Soon I relaxed my anger and I brooked
The utter irreversibility
Of my condition, and instead I looked
For ways to bear this with civility.
31
“Oh, well,” I thought, “All things will as they will!
There’s nothing for it but to thank the day,
For something has to be a daffodil.
Not everything can be a lofty bay.”
32
Before I had recovered from my shock,
The robot car to fetch me had rolled in,
And Ajinblambia closed with a lock
The door when she had seated me within.
33
The car’s computer knew the way of course,
Just the reverse of my excursion hither,
Nor could I budge the door with all my force
Until I was delivered duly thither,
34
Back to my room where I’d been led before,
By those two student nurses fair and hale,
Back to the sally port just at my door.
And then into my comfortable jail.
35
A day or two I languished, took my ease,
Sometimes just in my panties and brassiere,
Sometimes in slippers and a sweet chemise,
A fragile yellow robe absurdly sheer,
36
Through whose transparency I could descry
The curvature and roundness of my form
As past the mirror I slipped gliding by,
Or did a graceful arabesque perform.
37
However, pharmaceuticals produced
Here in our modern kingdom to promote
Quick healing my recovery induced,
And of a morning I received a note
38
Delivered by a student nurse that said
That I was to be ready to depart.
I’d straightened up the room and made the bed
When Ornaluna came to say we’d start.
39
Downstairs stood Deribandi hand in hand
With Sister Olezconia in black.
“Come with me now,” the abbess did command,
“I’ve brought a car and I will drive you back.”
40
She intimated she thought it unwise
For me to pilgrimage the twenty miles
From downtown Fwascren under open skies
Because I wasn’t ready for such trials
41
So quickly after I’d had surgery.
I still would be full able to fulfill
My vows, avoiding sin and perjury,
In aftertime, obeying Heaven’s will.
42
A wealthy benefactress had endowed
The convent with a limousine august.
Alone was Olezconia allowed
To drive. No other did the abbess trust.
43
This long, black car, magnificently sleek,
The lofty nun did manage with a flick
Of her well-sculptured wrist, and like a streak,
We bulleted away both straight and quick.
44
We passed through Old Belbénox presently.
This was a suburb of great Fwascren too.
Then we continued very pleasantly
Till I could see Renbóbo was in view.
45
Next we approached Clangzpónder, half the way,
On high I saw a godwit flying by,
A curlew here, a plover there did play,
Upon the azure breezes of the sky.
46
I saw mahogany in stand on stand,
Along with cashew holts and hursts of poon.
But there were grassy stretches of flat land
And even, here and there, a wayward dune.
47
I wondered if the Ánwap River nighed.
Once there, we’d have but little to traverse.
Was that a sail I saw with rigging tied?
Was that a loon who did his head immerse?
48
At length, we came to Old Bazdúnia,
The road whereon the nunnery is found,
I now saw larkspur and petunia
In beds that circle all the walls around,
49
The high gray walls enclosing the demesne
Belonging to the convent of our order.
She drove the limousine onto a lane
That had a row of fruit trees for a border.
50
A heavy oaken gate on iron leaves
Creaked open as a pair of nuns pushed hard.
Then Olezconia, with swishing sleeves,
Did steer the limousine into the yard.
51
Next Zhannizhéldia, as one was named,
And Quimbilárzhia, as was the other,
Pushed back the gate to where the jambs were framed,
Like daughters who are welcoming their mother.
52
A heavy iron padlock through two lugs,
One on the door, one on the jamb, they placed,
With many jerks and joggles, many tugs,
Then slowly to the portico they paced.
53
Until this time I’d been permitted speech,
Exempted from the canon for new nuns,
Who’re bound to silence till a year they reach,
A year of eighteen and four hundred suns,
54
On Nya, here in the galaxy called Ti.
Now Olezconia waxed rigorous,
With strictitude imposing upon me
Full silence and a schedule vigorous,
55
Long days of work, a diet rather spare,
A minimum of sleep, and loyalty.
No longer would I breathe such easy air
And hobnob with the kingdom’s royalty.
56
Just minutes later I was in my cell,
The very cell I’d occupied before.
Each little thing, as far as I could tell,
Remained as always, neither less nor more.
57
A bed, a chair, a table and some books
Did furnish my wee alcove, neat and clean,
A window high above that overlooks
The cloister and the grounds could scarce be seen.
58
A tiny bath, a tiny closet too,
Adjoined, but this was the totality.
There did remain me little I could do
But settle for this new reality.
59
The door was locked of course. I felt secure.
A soul could neither enter nor depart,
Without that she the keys go to procure
From where the abbess kept them all apart.
60
For Olezconia, and she alone,
Enjoyed the right discretionarily
To open cells, or simply to condone,
When others opened ordinarily.
61
In such a case, they’d go to get the keys,
Returning when their errands had been run.
Upon a ring that dangled at her knees,
The keys would be transfixed by the tall nun.
62
Yes, at her mercy and election I,
Like all the other postulants, would live.
A year’s novitiate would soon pass by,
And then more little liberties she’d give.
63
With my few books, a pen and paper too
Enabled me to write my life and times,
And hence these cantos I began to do,
Applying me to metric feet and rhymes.
64
Eventually, my habit I did doff,
And on the pillow furnishing the bed,
When I had turned my little lantern off,
I lay my dizzy, weary, drowsy head.
65
’Twas midnight in Dwesfesco, but at three,
According to an Ungi clock, I’d rise,
And eat a little breakfast brought to me
By some lay sister, maybe oaten pies.
66
As soon as I had eaten, bathed and dressed
The abbess came with jangling keys to ope
The door in front of me, and then I pressed
My wrists together tight, as she did grope
67
Producing from the folds of her black weeds