They stand like erect statues
the whole of them
in a half crescent moon
shining senseless, incensed eyes
on the one they once excommunicated
for having what used to be
a malady
of the mind.
I am him.
Dropped at Besançon
My pathology was raped by epistles.
The Roman men who fueled one another
Right before the war
Their bodies twisting and writhing
to Mother Philautia
won their battle.
I was taught there was no just cause
to the filth of two Adams.
I see the robes grouped in their cloister
black chasubles of stuc dragging
like they themselves have dragged,
and burned,
and killed,
and here and there
touched
All the while
« Tisonnant, tisonnant, de leur chaste robe noire. »
They are dead now.
Rocks protrude from the snowy ground
like the bulges they hid
when children came out to play.
I blink,
kiss my cross and curse the statues
soundless as priests
on a disk of snow.
