Santa Zitae, Virgine Luc
Basilica di San Frediano, Lucca
by Lucy Seward
santa zitae, virgine luc:
bejeweled in roses, encased in glass and gold,
body long, brown, open before me:
her mouth stretched wide in endless inhalation,
skin papery and packed like mud,
bone creviced and crusted,
fingers and toes poking like knives:
i can hear them scraping.
dust scratched and lace lined,
she holds me.
the cathedral air is thick with her,
rustling with death, hot and musty whispers,
suspended in shadow.
i wonder how my flesh will rot.
body exhumed in 1580,
three centuries spent curled inside the earth,
she was real, she was real, i think it as a question.
i will her a voice, one that sounds like wet sand–dense, beautiful;
i feel entitled to some sort of comfort, explanation, prophecy.
tell me what you loved, touched, wondered:
did you dream?
did you stare at your own reflection?
an aching to sliver between the fluttering colors of her consciousness,
the human of her, to know her ripest and most shiny parts,
for her to hold my face close, spill her metallic language into me
until i recognize that i am of her, and she of me:
it is my body exhumed, adorned, preserved, displayed,
my eyes gouged smooth as peeled bark,
my breath sucked dry in the airless case.