Unlike the plague-boys who whipped themselves to

salvation outside the churches, Catherine of Siena 

knew the value of private pain. She cruised to sleep  

with a sharpened pike for clandestine castigation. 

Here is my body, she told Him, may it be an anvil 

for Thy beatings. In her final days, only the Eucharist 

passed her lips; happy to live and die on his flesh alone. 

When there is too much desire and not enough God, 

we must turn something inward— a pike or an appetite. 

(I always wait for my dates to use the bathroom before I swallow 

The last of my dinner.) Still, Catherine learned early 

they would never make her a priest or a prophet

but if she died well enough, she would be granted a word 

that looks both like beautiful and beating.