Saint Catherine's Wheel
Catherine wheel. A device used in the Middle Ages for public execution named after Saint Catherine who famously was to be tortured on one. The torturers firmly stretched the limbs of the victim between the spokes of a wagon wheel and then bound the limbs about with biting cord and then struck the limbs with a sledgehammer breaking the bones and then braided the pulverized limbs around the spokes and then hoisted the wheel upon a pole and then let ravens eat the person alive and then lilies wisteria marigolds irises snap-dragons zinnias stroked down out of the cloven flaming sky and an angel with a terrible face unwound her holy femurs shins tibiae, set the soft wood of the wheel aflame and Catherine fell to earth like a fighter jet that plows into a mountain and her skin bright and deadly and her eyes like broken green glass stepped through the flowers through cotton through radiant feathers through cold white campfire ashes through tears through the agony of her torture and all things soft stepped and the mud kissed her white feet and she kissed with a kiss of peace on the left cheeks grey with bristles her torturers and then walking away from there she left them with a dreadful choice
--Michael Schorsch
Michael Schorsch lives in Iowa City with his wife and daughter. He co-edits The Sign of Peace, journal of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, and eXchanges, the University of Iowa's journal of literary translation.
