The Relic
A new poem
by Yusef Komunyakaa
In Saint Helena darkness falls into a window. Napoleon tells the doctor to cut out his heart & send it to the empress, Marie-Louise, but not one word said about his penis. Had an auctioneer or bibliophile known the weight or the true cost of infamy? After his body shipped home for burial in a great hall of clocks & candelabra few could reign over imperial silence. One was Vignali, paid silver forks, knives, & 100,000 francs to curate the funeral, whose manservant, Ali, confessed the deed. Now, we ask time to show us the keepsake, to let us see the proof in blue morocco & velvet locked in a glass case. I wonder if the urologist in Englewood, New Jersey, wrapped it in raw silk & placed it as a talisman under his bed. Or if it became a study for a master of clones rehearsing doxology & transubstantiation, not even a murmur covered by swanskin. It’s a hint of the imagination awakened, a shoelace, a dried-up fig or seahorse awaiting the gallop of soundless waves. |
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