Pilgrims travel to Turin to behold the ghostly face
in a savior’s linen, or Rome, for the muddy lump

of a saint’s heart. Another’s mummified head rests
white-veiled in Siena. A jeweled case in Padua

holds a putty-colored tongue. I’ve never been
in proximity to such mystical remnants, but once,

in a cafeteria, a master poet took my hand.
She touched each of my rings: The wedding band

with its false promise. The amber lozenge
from my great-aunt Nancy. The unrefined emerald

set in hammered silver. The moonstone from Salem,
where fourteen women were martyred.

She turned each one to see its every angle.
I felt the bones of her fingers, their thin shroud

of flesh. Breath labored from her reluctant lungs.
In her molecules, I basked for a minute.

She has written what I will always call scripture.
Soon, her body will be gone, saved by no religion.