I carried them all the way to the bones of St Peter

Vatican-issue rosary beads for my mother, the fancy

kind, with crystal beads and a solid crucifix, in a blue box.

I’d chosen the heavy-duty sort – she’d need it to cut through 

all that guilt – took them right with me, to the holiest place of all.

 

I carried them all the way to the bones of St Peter

they say he’s there, under the marble floor of the great 

basilica, deposited somewhere under Bernini’s baldachin – 

in a complex of mausoleums. It could be him, but might not

be him: a set of bones pegged by science, on a sixty-year old man.

 

I carried them all the way to the bones of St Peter

on a carefully planned journey for those ‘in the know’ 

waited, as instructed at the appointed hour, with a group

of American Jesus-freaks who held hands, prayed-swayed;

wore matching white tee-shirts – the whole thing looked legit.

 

I carried them all the way to the bones of St Peter

past the crypts of popes-past, to a pagan burial ground,

half hidden by excavations: a half-lit place of apostle bones – 

pilgrim-manna: relics from an age of persecution. We stooped,

craned necks to see, waited for something transcendental to strike.  

 

I carried them all the way, to the bones of an old bloke,

to a neat bundle of white pieces on a rock wall shelf: felt inside

my pocket for the little box tucked inside – for that pretty string of 

forgiveness beads. It was at that moment that I pictured you, distantly

rapturous and maddeningly cruel, thinking: we’d never be closer than this.