The saint takes the monster to church & the monster catches a cold
by Mary Ann Clark
published in The Scores
Here is a body.
There are muscles for cruelty, muscles for kindness;
there is poison and there are sweet shrill enzymes;
there is love and dirt. We are going inside.
The saint doesn’t know much about bodies, how they inscribe their excrescences on the
earth.
This is just a room with living things in it.
There is the flank by flank of us, the stink of us,
the zoo-ness, the how-do-ye-do-ness.
Our contagion of voices tangles near the ceiling in the notes of a hymn.
There is the palm on palm--
oh lord the saint says may we never wash our hands of our neighbour--
and there is the mouth on mouth, we mouth the cup one after another, saint and monster have kissed one another,
sopping the circle of drought on our tongues.
Saint and monster cluster at the watering-hole and a voice says
EAT EVERYTHING, DRINK EVERYTHING, TOUCH EVERYTHING, LOVE EVERYTHING.
