After the offending bit is popped out
these tiny stitches on your neck

are exquisite. Lips of the slit
don't speak the way you think they should,

break into stupid song, blow kisses
at the doctor. Some piece

that kept insisting on itself
will spend a few weeks in a jar on holiday

with strangers, stained and diced
and separated neatly

from its secrets. You can only
wait, reading your book about the sex

lives of the saints, the lance
that pierced and then pulled slowly out

of Saint Teresa's heart. A slice
is venerated in Milan, they say, an arm

in Lisbon, a single breast in Rome;
but her heart's enthroned

behind the convent walls at Avila. Pink
under glass, it wears a tiny crown.