Homage to a Girl Named Agata

Vibrating at the frequency of gold

-the Tabernacle

where flesh is turned into bread

and the transubstantiation

mutates molecules

for the greater good of humankind

 

The eye of the faithful trumped

to perceive Roman rosettes

where there are none

and Hellenistic columns

revisited when the human

mind was said to be born again.

 

A fresco of womanly care

receding in the shadows…

Could this be the right

receptacle where you go to collect

your thoughts today

seeking a Sicilian saint

amid the ruins

of the Post-

Post Age of Exploration,

Post Age of Enlightenment

Post Age of the New Liberated
Women and Men and Queers

Post Age of Truths

And Narrations?

 

Amid candles and incense

not too far, unbeknownst to me

another sacred space lies

offered by the Jesuits to the one I seek

the martyred girl subjected

to Roman double mastectomy

whose loss became a delight

for nuns’ confectionery

The density of Time and Geographies

layered itself upon the unaware

and the wares of the world

transmuted into sorrows and worries

that no trompe l’oeil could trick

into joy or nonexistence

 

But here, in this one receptacle of the transcendent,

I came seeking Agata, only to find

that this is the older space offered by the Knights Templar

to he who dispensed baptismal water

only later to lose his head

rather than to she who went missing

a set of different body parts

Yet, the Tabernacle, unmindful of territory

cruel practices and human mistakes

goes on shining its otherworldly light

unfazed.

.

Pina Piccolo, Imola, 30 October 2024

 

Cover image: Church of San Giovanni Vecchio, Imola

 

 

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