God, beautiful God
your savior voice converges
from every direction
but your deafening song, adrift
in a thousand siren winds,
carries flickers of fear to my
spread-open operating table self

how those hands work!
forcep fingers draw red lines
and pluck out the worms
once planted by ache

casting aside swathes of skin
and blood-slick baubles of silver,
you pull out my pearls
and put me back together

crossing my burgeoning breast
are threads of saintly white
my paragon body immune
to pain and love alike

when Eve ate the apple
she did it every day
to keep the blessed
doctor away