Bargain Stigmata
by Mark DeCarteret


She tried to let go and let God
rubbing the message on the button
into sympathetic atoms, persisting
until the flesh of each fingertip
was penetrated by pin, producing
infinitesimal kisses, specks of garnet
rather than an honorable surge,
the testimony she'd hoped for.
Curled on pink shag as a child
she unwound the rosary from her wrist,
watched as the white wand of hand
grew more furious, refusing to grant her
the wish she were decipherable, even sound.
Her parents believed they brought her up
to know the unlikelihood of entering
heaven, tasting anything sweet,
the difference between genuine miracles
and curious episodes mangled into spectacle
by a tender and susceptible heart.
Even now while she's sleeping she'll be
grinding their teachings into potions.

A fellow employee has scotch taped
a prayer card to her locker, crossing out
the name of the saint and replacing it with hers;
now it's she who is wearing the crown
of the penitent clown, whose skin has been
ripped by the beaks of fanatical birds
and must submit to the sky's interrogation--
would a real saint bite her nails,
slurp the bottle's bottom with a straw
for the last beads of apple juice?
Writing a check for dry cleaning
she sneers at the soft sigh of kitten
entangled in yarn next to her address.
Now her mascot is dust, the negligible;
everything that breathes, her superior.

In the mirror she rehearses her lines, begs
for mercy while pecking at her bangs,
the compassion and might of her savior
somehow reduced by the slip of lipstick,
the feigned suffering of her shade.
Now when she's ringing up customers,
she knows it's pretend-souls she's saving,
just a game to dismember the clock,
even disregards her finger's reopening wounds
to tend to the needs of her flock,
their defective fabric piling up.

Poking harder at the register,
she urges her own flaws into ribbon,
into strips of misgiving and shame
to be divided with those who have chosen
her line, the dim aura of her grace,
passing on slashes and smears,
her self-styled imperfections
until she can retreat to the break room
and lower each venomous digit
deep into the well of her mouth.






Copyright © 2024 by Red River Review. First Rights Reserved. All other rights revert to the authors.
No work may be reproduced or republished without the express written consent of the author.