In Toledo, the Sequestered Brides of Christ

In Toledo, the sequestered brides of Christ make marzipan. And devotees like me buy up the sweets via a three-chambered lazy Susan in an alley. Hear a voice but glimpse not the heavenly hands, an enterprise both savvy and vaguely eucharistic. “To taste the kingdom in a crumb of dough,” I say, a privilege to misquote Blake, even if it’s only to myself. The recipe dates back to the Court of the Caliphs, as alchemic as it is simple. Shouldn’t every traveler make a habit of eating earth, wind, air, and fire? Not to mention almonds, which must equal 50 percent by weight to pass muster with Toledo inspectors. I pay, turn the lazy Susan, and walk away with my own tin of marzipan, the abbess’s unseen blessing dusting each morsel. “Eat and be made whole,” I can almost hear her say. The body of Christ is a fish—delicious. And now a star, like the one that guided wandering kings. And now a sword, two-edged, like matters of belief. And now—forgive me—my Lord is a serpent. Spiraling in on himself like vortex or Milky Way, my faith quickening as God’s scales dissolve on my tongue.