The granite girl stands to recite.

Catechism quotes limn the inside
of her eyelids.

Her fingernails
spike her hands to her thighs.

She prays for Rorschach stigmata
to stain her virginal palms.

Her insatiable need
is for the sainthood of white doves.

Her face aches
for the crescent moon purity
of wimple and coif.

“The desire for God is written
in the human heart,” she intones,
thinking all the while
I am a good Catholic girl,
I am God’s innocent girl,
I am the girl of the incised granite heart.

—

Roy Beckemeyer of Wichita, Kansas has most recently had poems accepted by the periodicals America, The Lyric, and The Journal of Civic Leadership and the anthology To The Stars Through Difficulties.