Jeannine Dominy

I confess that as a young girl I loved a man who would not marry me for want of a dowry. I confess I had a mother who taught me a different way of life, one I resisted at first but learned to embrace. I confess I became a courtesan, traded yearning for power, welcomed many rather than be owned by one... I confess I embraced a whore's freedom over a wife's obedience... I confess I find more ecstacy in passion than in prayer. Such passion is prayer. I confess - I confess I pray still to feel the touch of my lover's lips, his hands upon me, his arms enfolding me... . Such surrender has been mine. I confess I hunger still to be filled and enflamed. To melt into the dream of us, beyond this troubled place, to where we are not even ourselves. To know that always, always, this is mine... If this had not been mine - if I had lived any other way - a child to her husband's whim, my soul hardened from lack of touch and lack of love. I confess such endless days and nights would be a punishment far greater than you could ever mete out... You, all of you, you who hunger so for what I give but cannot bear to see that kind of power in a woman. You call God's greatest gift: our selves, our yearning, our need to love - you call it filth and sin and heresy... I repent there was no other way open to me. I do not repent my life.

The Latin for banana is arienna. Banana tree is pala.

A woman's greatest, and most hard-won asset - is an education.

You… all of you… you who hunger so for what I give, but cannot bear to see such power in a woman. You call God's greatest gift… ourselves, our yearning, our need to love… you call it filth and sin and heresy.

I save the goodly wives of Venice from their husbands' lustful menace!

My people are true citizens 700 years back.

I confess I *fuck* divinely those who love and well opine me.

Recant the curse you give my kind. Admit I have, as you, a heart and mind.

You sleep with Giulia every night for duty's sake. I slept with the King of France once for duty's sake. Who does not forgive?

But I love you.

We danced our youth in a dreamed-of city. Venice. Paradise. Proud and pretty We lived for love and lust and beauty. Pleasure then our only duty. Floating then 'twixt heaven and earth. And drunk on plenty's blessed mirth. We thought ourselves eternal then. Our glory sealed by God's own pen. But paradise we found is always frail. Against man's fear will always fail.

Venice, mother, virgin, queen, and goddess, To be all five at once is no mean trick, If women's lust lost Eden, Our redress to be, Hearth, heart and home to every - prick.

On the page or on the sheet, You'll never find a tongue more sweet.

Do not ask of me what you cannot give yourself. Your wife is waiting.

Recant the curse you give my kind, Admit I have, as you, a heart and mind.

For the dream of love - as it cannot exist in this world that you've created.