There have been other martyrs
St. Ludmilla, strangled by a veil
St Medilia with her breasts removed
beheaded saints and saints crucified
upside-down, the way St. Urith’s blood
sprang up in flowers.

And for me it is a fever and twelve plates
eight glasses, fistfuls of forks
and you all in the living room
having drinks. Enjoy yourselves.
Please. I hope you are warm enough

these flames at my feet
provide for such company an atmospheric crackling sound
the spear in my side a harmonic suck, suck.
Satan sits in my kitchen, God
is in his high heaven—and who tempts me

with his bronzed shoulders
his tail twisting through my stainless steel stools.
I am heating up in here; I am steamed
soft. I am weak with what they call
religious ecstasy.

Bacterial infections are passed hand to mouth
and I am pouring your drink. I am burned
at the stake, taken down in pools of blood.
My devotion flickers like a flame in paper. I carry
hors d’oeuvres.

I speak in tongues of angels