“Saint of Salvage” / “Saint of Avowal” / “Saint of Sudden Death” by Lisa Marie Basile

saint                                                 of                                                     salvage

In July I spoke only Italiano, come una principessa, and danced only on terraces, somersaulting through the depravity and rose bud. It was libidinal, deepthroating beauty to ease the grief. Yet the earth knew. Swimming in Isola Bella I met the dolor of the sea. I clung to the shore with my hands wretched in the air, consumed of my wound. I contained such lack. 

When black smoke filled my bedroom I left only with what I could carry and felt the sovereignty of loss. My body with its bare hands contorted, or in prayer, touching the ligaments between having and not-having, and the kingdom where everything that was taken could be given back. 

Incredulous, divine; this ruin — the mother of wholeness.

Saint of avowal

I wrote this poem so many times.
                        First because I was exploding.
Then I had to write it quietly
                        so no one would find out.
There is the thing, and the translation of the thing.
          Everything else became about the fear,
                        the way a space could be neglected
or even filled.
The fault
between hunger and indulgence. The way
I want and I covet makes you nauseous, makes you whole.
It isn’t that I’m keeping a secret.             More that I am ruinous.
I find myself at a sort of shoreline.
I wake up in water. I clean the salt from my hair.

Saint of sudden death

When did the violet come                   
            to take you away?
It shifts             from places we won’t know.

As roots below the earth
            in whisper.
Let me hold you
                       in water. Of water. 

Let me wash you.

Suffering,         we are gently
              woven into yellow light & white coverlets;
                       a collapsing.
How the fight becomes kingdom.

Weep now.

                       Water your threshold. 

You only have to make one decision:
             the salt of the earth
                        or fire.
You only have to sleep. 

                         In the smallest hours of night
I bend my knees.                   By day I lay my head upon the ground.

              A sound that lasts       on and on pulling us
                                   through its veil.

Lisa Marie Basile

Lisa Marie Basile is the author of a few books of nonfiction and poetry, including the forthcoming SAINT OF (White Stag Publishing, 2025). Her work can be found in The New York Times,  Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions, Narratively, Occulum, Burning House Press, Tinderbox Poetry, The Account, and more. Lisa Marie has an MFA from The New School and is the editor of Luna Luna.

Headshot: Lisa Marie Basile

Photo Credit: Staff