Lynn Domina
Guilty
Arching the doorway, three gargoyles strain
to mark who enters, and for whom. They keep
their separate books, desires accomplished,
resisted, frustrated, your coming and staying and going.
The third hideous tongue
curls back upon itself, speaking
no evil. It squats on haunches
bloated with secrets, its stone tongue
swollen and swelling. It knows
who you are. If it knew
who you were, what you’ve thought
of doing, you would be struck
delirious and dead. You would be
confessing in tongues, outside, quaking,
you would be slain
on the concrete, your silhouette chalked on the sidewalk,
no exit wound, no weapon,
if it knew, if it knew, if it knew.
Prophecy
The visiting angel, momentarily incarnate
and visible but otherwise
immortal, knows only unrelieved expectation.
And so when the women
gaze at him expectantly
he misses their fear and blurts out
the message and evaporates. And the women
crumple to the floor, aghast
that anyone could deliver this news,
that he would reveal
only the ghastly end, the glare
of the flames, their pungent
burning, the gritty and soft ashes,
that he would foretell: you shall live in fear and die
and turn and disappear.
Their disbelief insists no one could hear this and live.
So one will suffocate
in a house fire, her corpse gluttonously consumed;
the other will recover to wonder
whether any of it was real—
their bodies, the warning, her life after.
Jeweled Turban
With that glare she could change
men into stones her father said.
Once a woman was so ugly
snakes sprouted from her scalp.
Of course no one would marry her—
and then what? A hero
slashed her neck and kept her head
in his trophy case her father said.
The girl’s fine blond hair
floats like a halo, though she wasn’t born
holy. One day a snake
might wrap itself around her head,
a green snake, fluorescent, grave,
one blue diamond gleaming on its forehead,
red stripes shimmering at its shoulders.
Her worried father will choke
on his own stories.
From a distance people will believe
she wears a jeweled turban.
She will stride through her neighborhood
like a prophet, envy of other girls, proof
of God’s choice, some foreign god, a goddess
whose breath warms the girl’s face.
They will stroll home, easy
in each other’s company. If people shout
monstrous names, her response will hiss
in their ears forever.
Hall of Obsession
Until now, one alcove in this private museum
has been cordoned off, and you’ve obeyed, grateful.
But today you slip
in and wonder: Who curated this?
A risen Christ dangles haphazardly
beside the busy flat San Damiano icon,
its tiny rooster pecking out
denial. Hundreds of wooden, gold, stone, bronze,
clay, carved, wrought, hammered, bejeweled,
plain and painted crucifixes gaze out.
That robust Christ
must be some sculptor’s self-portrait.
And that ornate reddish wood
pinned behind the ivory body,
cross and halo one elaborate piece,
testimony to the carver’s talent.
And that diptych from the Rambona Monastery,
the infant Jesus and crucified Christ,
each startled and naïve,
size their only difference.
And those crosses named
for St. John, St. Symeon, the Celts, the Russians,
all eager to testify:
God died. You’re here
watching until you believe it.
