Lives of the Saints

After the offending bit is popped out

these tiny stitches on your neck

are exquisite. Lips of the slit

don’t speak the way you think they should,

break into stupid song, blow kisses

at the doctor. Some piece

that kept insisting on itself

will spend a few weeks in a jar on holiday

with strangers, stained and diced

and separated neatly

from its secrets. You can only

wait, reading your book about the sex

lives of the saints, the lance

that pierced and then pulled slowly out

of Saint Teresa’s heart. A slice

is venerated in Milan, they say, an arm

in Lisbon, a single breast in Rome;

but her heart’s enthroned

behind the convent walls at Avila. Pink

under glass, it wears a tiny crown.

Source: Hotel Imperium (University of Georgia Press, 1999)