Vestal Virgins

We walk through the streets of ancient Rome,

red bricked apartments line a green lawn,

stacked rooms that housed the Vestal Virgins.

Plucked from their parents as children,

they lived cloistered, except when

paraded as trophies during grand festivals.

With only each other’s company, they kept

Vesta’s flame alive, symbol of hearth and

home, then were forced out at the age of 40.

Well past the age of marriage and household,

their beauty faded, past childbearing

years, they were doomed to a solitary life.

Now, as we pass their statues, outlines of

an ideal feminine, shapely, perfect – we notice

that every figure is headless, their minds lost.