After Dom la Nena’s “Batuque”
Il Duomo di Catania
In the crowd thronging the cathedral
this August, I’m light as Etna’s ash.
There’s room only to stand, to listen
to a priest preside over the steady thrum
of a human tide that sighs, drums marble
with leather soles, pushing me forward
to receive the moon at a mass
where half are listening, half are waiting
for the remains of St. Agatha.
The rhythm quickens in the streets,
devotees sing and try to touch her effigy.
A man steadies me as the sea surges
over land, unmoors me. All is drowned
for a moment in a litany of bells. Confetti
snows from balconies, catches in my hair,
while fire fashions itself into marigolds,
a second heartbeat, in a night the color
of aubergines. Etna’s heart, a fiery ribbon,
streams toward the towns, her voice
a murmured thunder under our feet.
In Catania, all is batuque. A bride pauses
before the camera’s light. I step out of the sea
into a street of vendors selling nuts, sweets,
pilgrim badges. At Stecco Natura,
I find a Nutella gelato, savor
the frozen like a stolen silence in a night
the temperature of sauna, in a night broke
open like a hazelnut, bone, flesh, dust
returning to dust, covering us all in a layer
of sanctity, in a layer of sweet.
