Relica
by and published in Edition Eleven of Pomegranate
Just look at me straight, she says,
And for once he remembers
How his mother kept his baby teeth
In a box with a lid which they rattled against
Like hailstones,
Those bloodstained bonewhite
Chips of ivory, with their ragged roots
Lying dusted in her dresser—
A relic of him, the child-saint,
Seeds in an early coffin
Which he could never replant.
And now she is
Searching for a handle, this girl,
This apostle, with her
Stained-glass irises, her virgin’s hands,
One piece with which to
Own his flesh,
Possess the inner sanctity
Of the beamed chapel of his ribcage.
To me it’s more than skin, she says,
Than hair or bone, just let me keep
The totality of your
Consecrated blood.
He tells himself
He’ll never let her have him
Chained. But his body ignores
What the page decrees,
And he sheds an eyelash
On the shoulder of her dress.