Pigeonholing

They preached over tea and biscuits
on the sofa, holding worship
like a bone china handle;
and sermonized with ease
their condemnation of our being
as though we were not made
of the same rib, the same mind;
and I knew it solemnly, between
the warmth of palm-to-palm:
if I sat one-sided at the table
with a woman, if by morning
I knelt and washed her feet
and doubled the disgrace
I would bring upon my shoulders;
to take it to confession and
be out with it, the wretched sin
on that teetering edge
of idol worship—I would be
just as rotten as any crime
committed, newly deemed
too unholy to have tea with