Receiver, and: Saint Sebastian
- Receiver, and: Saint Sebastian
Receiver
Then my brother held the telephone to my father where he fought to breathe, as if he might have more to tell a son, though what I heard was wind mostly, me among the branches, a thousand miles from here. So I said something I do not remember, something awkward like a boy at an altar with an offering that feels more like confession. And as I returned the receiver to its cradle, I watched it sleep, I watched it dream a man who walked across our roof each night, until, finding nothing, he grew so beat, so spiritless, he lumbered off into the trees, as dawn does with its bright ax, to lay the darkness down. [End Page 678]
Saint Sebastian
Pain is an arrow that pins a body to the bone. So much we cannot say, and pain becomes a word for that. For us. Take Sebastian in his winged afflatus. Not that we should feel a pinch of debt or ardor, though some do and love him for it. For he is a beautiful man, his skin limned in the disgraces of his garment to feather the walls of national collections. And yes, he lived, only to be crowned to death by clubs. But where is that canvas, the blunt force of the greater sacrifice. The unsexed Sebastian, unpierced, unfledged, unconscious. Is he not as lovely. And loved. [End Page 679]
Bruce Bond has written nine books of poetry, most recently Choir of the Wells and The Visible. He has two books forthcoming: The Other Sky (poems in collaboration with the painter Aron Wiesenfled) and For the Lost Cathedral. He is a Regents Professor of English at the University of North Texas and poetry editor for American Literary Review.
