What of the saint
should be thanked for miracle? The hand
clasped around the beaded relic, or the grey
tracksuit that sleeved the hand?
From the glass-walled
crypt, his heart was flown like a garnet-colored beetle
and boxed in the church sanctuary. Milk-faced
and haloed with curls, he could be
any of the children in those late-
night commercials for a cancer research hospital,
before the shaving of heads and placing of ports.
I know that not everyone who dies becomes
a saint just by dying, even if we think
they're almost holy. Someone must first be led away
from the brink, brought back to life, rinsed
of the incurable condition.
This kind of work seems both
unremarkable and astonishing. One child survives
the surgery; the other never wakes up
from the ether.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
