Saint Theresa is deep undone, divided
to her marrow. A problem of faults
and bits. They’ve sawed her up good,
her sacred bone splinters and paper-thin
cross sections, her knuckles, scattered
to all of the altars that need her.
Her collectors—purveyors of the smallest parts,
receivers and protectors—must hinder
her safe return; all those vaults
and glassed-in cases. If she wakes
to the trumpets’ alarm
and tries to pull herself together, her once-dust
heart a magnet to draw the littlest bits
back home? One foot hopping across Rome
might meet in the Tiber a finger just in from Biloxi,
or Saint Peter of Ankles, hobbling through.
And if the pieces don’t all show up on time,
what then? Who will guess the correct curve
of her holy knee, her left breast
perfect but for one white plaster nipple?









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