Veni, Sanctus Spiritus
My heart: hungry, not humble, hubristic with voracity.
I think I could drop through the cold floor like a sinkhole
and devour it all, a chasm under the chancel—
I fear my emptiness. Worry-water beads my lashes.
St. Michael behind me: a lance in my shoulder,
leading me onward with stiffened jaw.
St. Erasmus before me: a hand on my brow,
branding me with oil, enflaming me—
I dig my fingernails into that burning burden
and feel it give under my grip; I
gnaw it, will it to fill the sinkhole at my core.
But the sacred sparks flit here,
this restless stomach I mistook for a heart—
while I count the drops of oil slipping down my nose,
His bloody hands rap at the walls of my
ignored heart like the skin over a hollow drum,
beating a third beat in my anxious pulse.
My white-knuckle prayer to be fed tires itself,
rattling, until I hear the rhythm in my ribcage
harsh and heavy: Have I not hewn honey
from stone for you? Knit your bones?
Tended your soul-fire while you slept?
You will not consume until you are consumed.
I am the starving St. Catherine with watery eyes,
the silent St. Gemma with dripping palms,
blindly emptying myself and clutching thorns.
I am crushed like oil and laid in the ambry
to rest, heart burning from the outside in.
Caroline Gorman is writer and public library lover from Indiana. She studied English literature and religion at the University of Evansville, where she won awards for both her academic and creative writing.
Amethyst Review 