Anorexia Mirabilis: Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi, by Frank Paino

Ecstasy of St Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, by Alessandro Rossi (Italy) 1627-1697

Anorexia Mirabilis: Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi

In the lower choir where my sisters kneel 
on this rough wood, restless, black-beaded, 

lost in reveries of glowing oven stones, 
the coarse seed bread and churned butter

that will soon break the long night of their fast,
I wait on nothing but you, Lord, unsteady as I am, 

slow-pulsed and languorous beneath the weight
of my patched woolen mantle. Still young, 

my monthly blood has halted like all hope
of the damned. I am mother solely to desire

ravenous as a coliseum beast and I will rise
only when the gold-throated bells have beckoned

You and I brush my lips against the priest’s 
warm fingers, swallow You who deigns to enter me 

white as a winding sheet before its terrible commission.
You stagger me like plaited thorns pressed

to my crown where this white wimple bends
its nimbus arc. You have inscribed the reliquary

of my heart with a secret to be read only when
I am laid open on the surgeon’s cold stone table. 

The Word Was Made Flesh and dwelt within me. 
O, Love who descends in a garland of fire,

bloodied robe spilling­ off the shoulder,
off the scourged hip, I am damp as a new bride

to behold the smooth cursive that arrows 
from your muscled waist to the rag they hung

above your sex for the sake of modesty. 
Unworthy though I am, a virgin with a harlot’s name,

I beseech You not for death, but agony, not light, 
but doubt’s brute darkness. Render me desolate

and hollow as a midnight nave. Countenance 
the cloister cupboards demon-gaped to illumine

glittering jars of late summer preserves. 
Conjure a years-long ache in my belly,

wolf sister to the bone whip that flays me.
no matter this starved-drunk equilibrium,

the yellowed vellum of my skin, these bones
gone brittle as pendant ice. I remain renunciate

for Your name’s sake. I consent to nothing
but the unleavened moon that conceals

Your broken glory. O Lord, I beg You, shatter me
with promises of the feast that is to come.

Frank Paino

Frank Paino’s poems have appeared in a variety of literary publications, including: Crab Orchard Review, Catamaran, North American Review, World Literature Today, Gettysburg Review, Prairie Schooner, The Briar Cliff Review, Lake Effect and a number of anthologies. Frank’s third book, Obscura, was published by Orison Books in 2020. His first two volumes of poetry, The Rapture of Matter and Out of Eden were published by Cleveland State University Press. Frank has received a Pushcart Prize, The Cleveland Arts Prize in Literature, and an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. His website is: https://www.frankpaino.net