XIII

Transubstantiation

I am looking for the kind of divine intervention

that doesn’t require hindsight.

You, from across the street,

A shard of light kneeling in the gutter,

refracting soft divinity.

Smooth and glistening. I want to place You,

tender between fingers and palm,

a fragile sacrament I should never have witnessed.

Gentle mirror, for a moment, something softer—

genuflected refraction, a face I might recognise

if mercy had ever come naturally.

I have never asked glass to be kind, only truthful—

offering no absolution, cutting with the clarity of unanswered prayer.

awaiting a trial of inhabitation, bleeding relics as proof of You.

But proof will never be enough.

I have seen saints weep in silence,

bodies hollowed by pious weight.

Whispering prayers that never return,

What saint has not suffered?

What martyr has not prayed?

If pain is the cost of conviction,

then I will be devout—

cleaving credence from flesh.

I will press you, devoutly,

into the centre of my palm—

white knuckles, red wrist.

Unworthy but unwavering.

Stigmata of the ever-believing,

an offering You never asked for,

a sacrifice I cannot renounce.

My violent reminder of joy unborn,

splitting me to revelation,

validating pain as proof of life.

The glimmer of glass and blood is indistinguishable,

both immaculate, both undeniable.

Does the source really matter?

Dorothea B