by Hilary Sideris
What painter could resist
the patron saint of soldiers,
archers & plague sufferers,
the story of his body
tied in loincloth to a laurel
trunk or a Corinthian
column, impaled by arrows
that don’t kill him,
but are only martyrdom’s
phase one. He’ll pluck
them from his neck, chest,
limbs, & march to Rome
to protest Diocletian’s
cruelty before he’s
clubbed to death
successfully.
Hilary Sideris lives in Brooklyn and studies the lives of artists and saints.
