Dear Placidus,
In the cinders where no bells are rung,
Gaping throats like unsealed censers
	I feel Psalm 68 still wet on my tongue,
		Little Placidus, why do you flee?
			do you not wish to be slaughtered, 
				your faith delivered unto thee?
	What use is your devotion
if I may not kill you
in the most violent of ways
why may I not rip your intestine
from your very God-given FLESH
If you wish not to die,
	I would ask why
	because what greater display 
		of your endless Love can there be?
If you wish not to die,
	let your place be mine
so I may feel some worth in hunger
and so I may feel forgiven once more.
Let me CONSUME YOU TO YOUR VERY BONE
YOUR HEART TORN ASUNDER

		I. 		GOD-BEARER
Small Benedictine, 
Were you not given?
No, you were given, weren’t you,
With a Roman oblation
	Before your tongue could form its negation
When blade touched your neck,
did you cry out? or did you let it
scrape you; and when they shaved
your hair, was it still golden?
or did it leave you;
and did the Father beget you?
or did you let him beseech you
	When you fell into water
	and Maurus became Moses,
did you think of His Love? 
		or his Judaic cruelty.

		II. 		YELLOW 
Palmed lover
My yellowed angel
	with the faux-tonsure,
		and the soft hands 
My child of rule,
	your obedience wrought a miracle
		but what good did it save you?
My child of silence,
	what prayers did they teach you
		before you knew their meaning?
	Pagan knives delivered your head,
	dear Placidus, and the thirty-three
			I do not wish it was me.