St Anthony's Tongue

The patron saint of lost objects,

And the cat got his tongue.

A hazardous dagger,

A necromancer’s wand.

A tiny shrivelled titbit of flesh

In a crystal cylinder.

The nub.


Bodies: immortal absences.

The first,second and third- class relics

Of Catholic imagination.

From a lullaby baby

To a dismembered corpse.


There has to be proof.

Scientists of the invisible,

Physicists of love,

We enter equations

In our book-keeping

And feel for a warm true body in the night.