Listen to Allisa Cherry read “Second Anointing” from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
About this poem: Much of my poetry grapples with reclaiming power after deconstructing from an inherited patriarchal faith. In my family’s religion there’s a little-talked-about temple ritual that few are invited to participate in, called a Second Anointing. It’s an ordinance that requires the covenant of marriage. This poem, titled “Second Anointing” imagines a woman arriving at that sacredness through autonomy and through the quotidian. The televangelist quote is pretty close to actual and I’ve carried it around with me since 1999 hoping it would find its way into a poem, though I never learned the name of the preacher who said it.
Allisa Cherry is the author of An Exodus of Sparks (Michigan State University Press) and the 2024 recipient of the Wheelbarrow Books poetry prize (RCAH Center for Poetry). Her work has appeared in journals such as The McNeese Review, TriQuarterly, The Baltimore Review, and The Penn Review. She currently lives in Oregon where she teaches workshops for immigrants and refugees transitioning to a life in the U.S. and serves as a poetry editor for West Trade Review.