“What kind of light flames on them? What’s on fire—/A church? A shop? But also inward: desire”
- St. Acacius: Four Pheasants
In fact, they’re ancient strangers, scions spread,
And further, to shots of hunting rifles. Of blood,
Princes; of right, divine, and so they tread
The manifest earth to destiny, to ends. They scud
And bank, their heads indigo green, around
Their throats a torque of white as if to show
The place to wring or chop. At a frowsy mound
In May’s haze of green, they halt where a row
Of sliced limestone piles to a base—a wall,
A threshold, smoothed by boot-soles. As one, they bolt,
Disappear. And the saint? Buzz-cut, tough, his call—
Empire: to wield peace and to choke revolt,
Until the Voice that he heard was fearsomely real.
My name is Christian! But poultry innards had signed
His death. And after? And now? So you might feel
A sharp shudder of spirit, a chill of mind.
- St. Erasmus: Meeting With St. Maurice
(Riots in Response to the George Floyd’s Murder, Minneapolis, May 2020)
What kind of light flames on them? What’s on fire—
A church? A shop? But also inward: desire,
Mistrust? Righteousness? Both these men have died
For belief—for the same: his own. Each to his side.
Neither speaking: Tired? Frustrated? The white
Man, backed to the left: his doughy face alight—
Gutted alive. The other’s arm held out,
His palm turned up as though he’s just about
To accept an orange, a sweet-skinned pear, he leans
Past center. He’s Black. What his bearing means—
What his body tells: On the neck, the boot,
And in legion, death. And those behind them—brute
Unease? Empathy, fuming wonder? — Their eyes,
Color of fetter-iron, color of skies
Annealed at the zenith—say that they’ve yet to learn
The way that both a saint and a sinner burn.
after the painting by Grünewald
James Scannell McCormick’s third book of poetry is First of Pisces, which was released with Kelsay Books. He lives and teaches college English in Rochester, Minnesota.
