More on: Poetry

In Siena’s basilica, Saint Catherine’s head, freed from its reliquary, now stands in its ownskin, incorrupt on the silver altar, the teeth still visiblein that open air.

It has been a bad decade for God. To begin with, we are losing women.

It’s always the woman looking over her shoulder, some man chasing her past herself.

This is no parable, Jesus tells his disciples. I want to show you in between my wordsa carnal will to be reborn.

Perceiving less than I can fathom, I name more than I can know.

By inadequacies of word, of form, I have reached for you.

In your abandonment you are beloved; in exile you are saved.

Look as upward they gaze: those blessèd, dancing round and around in that circle of praise.

Fingers folded not in prayer, but interlaced. So as not to be torn asunder.

The left hand still flexes with the boy’s death, but on the right, a reprieve: the wrist wilts.