The black stone—
the stone that bludgeoned Saint Telemachus in the colosseum,
the stone whose edges have been smoothened by the hands of pilgrims,
lies in a pit in my stomach—
the Mecca of my pain.
Tell me.
Has my suffrage been in vain?
Has the raffle for my soul been drawn?
Is all hope ancillary to the divine will?
Tell me.
Tell me now
before it's too late.
Or rather, say an intercessory prayer on my behalf.
When I'm gone, regard me with a laugh and a sigh.
"Oh, those are pearls that were his eyes!" say,
and knowing how way leads into way, leave me behind.
I shall lie supine—
my incorruptible body—
waiting for Him to bring the camphor oil
up to my nose,
to rouse me from my slumber,
to wet my forehead with indiscriminate kisses.
I shall lie where
the lily of the valley grows.
I shall withhold the secrets
that only the mealworm knows,
and when—in the juvenescence of Spring—the white tiger mauls the oxen,
I shall be resting beneath a flowering judas
with blood seeping
at the root.
The tiger picks the bones and licks his paws,
yet my incorruptible fruit—
oranges, pomegranates, and figs—
hangs from the bough.
He'll question why I do not die, and I'll answer him:
"Shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound?"
