{another in the series -- or yes, I had to look online to find out which twin is anorexic}

Saint Catherine of Siena to Mary-Kate Olsen

what god stole your hunger? who demands this martyrdom
of the throat? it’s a specific treason, a case worth losing,
nobody can hear you with fingers or sticks between your lips,
nobody loves you in the bathroom, everyone’s in the kitchen
again, this is my body, broken for you, take and eat

the appearance of bones is not a miracle of the flesh
(take and eat) do as I say, not as I did, what do your
visions say? who marries you in the dream, Christ
slipping a ring on my thin second finger, my shorn hair
all over the floor, gold for gold, I was six when he first
came for me, who insists on this full-body stigmata,

how long have you been paying this penance? are you ready
to die for this? martyrdom’s a pretty notion until you’re nose
to nose with it and nothing to be done, the body rejecting water,
salt, fish, when you realize the devil’s the one who wants
you small, who told you the pus of a cancer was wine, said

sip, swallow, this is my blood, transubstantiation in three
degrees, when you have given your good body to a lie
-- nobody’s going to beatify you, Mary, when your bones
turn to whispers they will bury you under a stone
that did not ask to be a stone, we do not ask to be but we are
and to live, Mary, to swear on everything holy that these bodies

are not vessels but gifts, that’s the trick, to be an altar
and not the sacrifice, for what are you atoning? who
is your eucharist? I made men believe. brought a condemned
man to faith and caught his severed head in my hands, beguine
or not you have hands, a throat, the world doesn’t need

another dead-thin girl, your suffering is not special, offered up
to magazine covers and lip gloss endorsements, thousands
flocked to confession after I preached in public squares, my
starvation earned me the Pope’s ear, what are you winning?
my mistake was believing the body meant nothing, yours
the opposite – Mary meaning bitter, Katherine meaning pure,

Christ and I died at 33, anvils for the world’s beatings, vessels
of the world’s sins, glue your brittled bones into the face
of a god who bids you eat, our bodies broken into bread
at your feet, chicory, water lily, do this for you, rosemary,
asphodel, do this in remembrance of me.


*