by Lexi Pelle

Something my stepfather said to see
if my mother would believe it.

She did. She’s been to the Vatican.
How blessed the Basilica must be

that some tourist’s enthusiastic
hand gestures never punctured

its pillars, Bernini’s baroque
canopy never collapsed by an old

Catholic’s fainting awe. A miracle
the mosaics still marvelous despite

centuries of storms. She was pissed
when he laughed, thought he wanted

to make her seem stupid, gullible—
I only believed you because

I love you, she said weeks later when
he repeated the story to his bandmates.

Who doesn’t want the world to be
made of softer material? Who isn’t

waiting for truth to transubstantiate
the hours spent scrubbing

sticky spaghetti from the pot.
Say the statue of David is

swiss cheese, wouldn’t you want
to bite a sculpted thigh

until beauty felt a little less
unattainable? Stick a finger in

the wound of truth
like Caravaggio’s Thomas

fishing around in Jesus’s flesh,
tell me what you feel.

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Lexi Pelle was the winner of the 2022 Jack McCarthy Book prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Ninth Letter, One Art, Abandon Journal, and 3Elements Review. Her debut poetry book, Let Go With The Lights On, will be released in May.