The Patron Saint of Lost Things
St. Anthony,
we call you
The Patron Saint of Lost Things.
St. Anthony?
Do you have my brother?
Because people shift their weight
beside a casket
busting with
carnations.
They tell me the same thing,
one
by
one,
they say: We are
sorry for your loss.
I have “lost” my brother. It is my duty to retrieve him.
I wonder: does he lie broken beside misplaced car keys?
I only ask you, Anthony,
because you
are
The Patron Saint of
Lost Things.
You plucked Aunt Lina’s evening purse from the tracks.
The silk
glimmered like fish scales
in the steady river of a bustling train platform
at rush hour.
She flung a white-knuckled prayer
from the A train at 34th
Street, Penn Station.
It drifted heavenward that night,
mingling
with
the steam and the sweat and the saxophone music.
Not one penny was disturbed; not a single breath mint
thumbed
from
the roll.
That night
you let Aunt Lina keep everything she already had.
Remember
how you swept Alice’s engagement diamond
from beneath the
fridge?
The stone winked
among grains of rice and stray Cheerios.
No one believed that would happen—
that diamond was more chip than
rock—
but it meant something to her.
Anthony, I believe in you, the three miracles that made you a saint.
I’m
asking for a fourth.
You can make my brother whole,
reach
six feet under, into the cool
gut of a Catholic cemetery.
Scoop him from Earth’s tight embrace,
touch
his finger, breathe life into his lungs,
and
point
him
home.
Just so you know:
He’s buried beside the New Jersey Turnpike, Exit
8A.
He’s near the babies.
You will see faded stuffed animals,
Mylar
balloons
bobbing in the sunlight,
a cluster of angels
kneeling for the
duration.
Just so you know: His name is Michael.
I am on my knees.
The candle is lit.
Flame flits, an urgent
tongue,
licking a colored-glass votive,
piercing
the bone
whiteness
of this New Mexico church,
La Chiesa de San Miguel,
for
him.
Eyes follow flame,
shoulders shiver in November.
We watch wax soften
and reshape.
Dear St. Anthony,
I believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit,
three-in-one, three-for-one,
the trinity, like a blue-light
special
at ShopRite – this week only!
I believe.
My gut goes con dios.
But I do not long to find car keys,
a silk purse, or a diamond
ring.
Anthony,
you can keep your three-for-one blue-light specials
your
pilgrimages to white-washed churches
named after my dead brother:
Michael,
Michele, Miguel.
I question the wisdom of candlelight.
The flame that licks the
glass,
the fire that softens edges,
won’t lick the ground.
The earth is dust. This hollow ground contains my brother.
He is too heavy to resurrect?
Jesus refuses to spit on soil
and
make
me
see.
So it’s up to you.
St. Anthony?
Find him.
by Laurie Granieri
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