Christian Sammartino: Allow Me to Canonize You

THEORY OF EXTINCTION & RESURRECTION

Dinosaur skeletons hang from my mobile
begging me to be their god, begging me to learn
enough about multiplying cells and benevolence

so I can resurrect them from the cretaceous.
Shadows swirl on my forehead in serpentine
patterns until I wear a crown of my elder’s bones.

I wear my heritage in a perfect circular almanac
and feel the weight of their desire to walk the earth
press down upon my soft skull like a meteorite

sizzling into the atmosphere of an infant planet.

I glimpse their bodies fleshed out in my young
reptilian mind, slicing open the shell of remembrance
with a serrated egg tooth, until they stampede

out of my crib and into the urban sprawl of this decade
            to torment every wild thing who has thus far survived
                        the blitzkrieg of challenges from the god of wrath.

I outstretch my hands to animate each body,
            extend my spine so big, until I stand and clutch my crib,
                        uttering all the magic words I learned to wake

my parents from their desperate nightly rituals.

The crib shakes like a body during an exorcism –
            my mobile sings the prehistoric hymns of bloodlines,
                        refusing to apologizing to their creator for their existences.

You are the only one granted resurrection –
            emerging from the bedrock of amnesia, carrying your car keys,
                        wearing your favorite pink lipstick, which blushes like peonies.

Your bones make the familiar music of survival
            when you pick me up and hoist me toward the full moon,
                        as you chant all your favorite recipes into my ears.

The whole room fills with the incantation of your rosemary,
            and I recall all the ways you cured the great depression
                        with thimbles full of vanilla and anise.

Your voice quivers with the harmony of Sinatra lyrics
until your gold bracelets jingle, and I feel your pulse
through the precious metal, which resonates within my skull

like the very first time you spoke my name.
                        .
As you cradle my body in my hospital blanket,
            even as the meteorite of forgetting threatens to enter
                        the atmosphere of my brain,

the music of your voice defies
every theory of extinction.

SOUNDTRACK: MY VOICE IS A VASE OF PEONIES

My voice is the vase of peonies on our kitchen table

uttering small prayers as wind sneaks through

the open window, visible reverence.

Words levitate out of me like the stems

suspended in the clear vase, a vessel

that prolongs the life of fugitive beauty.

I am a centerpiece, a serene distraction,

lush spheres of plum, perfect tangerine

circles masking the agony of forgetting.

The woman who nurtured this garden

on her knees as if it were a second Eden,

misplayed my name in her thicket of memory.

Generations of recollections — faces of grandchildren,

the birthdays of her five sisters, the identity

of her lover in old photo albums, composts

into a heap of soil she can’t turn with a pitchfork

and spread over the barren parts of the earth to nurture

annuals out of the amnesia of winter slumber.

Yet, this bouquet of peonies draws her to the center,

brings her back to a familiar table that does not feel

like the last supper, but a family reunion.

These peonies, scarlet with the desire to transport

a revered matriarch back to the source of memory,

imitates the unwavering dance of an eternal flame.

Knowing they can never become fire, the petals

settle for the bliss of this moment, when her awareness

blossoms into perfect recognition,

And this table is no longer populated by a group

of perfect strangers, but the children she mothered,

and their children, calling out to her — and she calls

each of us by our right names, one last time,

on one final Sunday, which feels like a communion,

that fills our appetites, for as long as her smile lasts.

SOUNDTRACK: MY VOICE IS A MAGNOLIA TREE

My voice is a magnolia tree vivaciously
blossoming plumes of pink and white lips, blowing
kisses after emerging from hibernation.

My tenderness is no longer a dormant tremor
cloistered within my body — it is naked fuchsia
and cream, rapturously speaking in tongues

to the neighborhood — throw open your windows
and behold how my wildness parades down your
streets like a float on New Year’s Day

sprinkling the confetti of my petals on sidewalks
to flaunt my growth to those who dared silence me,
as if to say, the wholeness of my blooming

music cannot be suppressed — I Survived
a rabble of mumbling woodcutters and the racket
of their axes, which are now mute,

bolted within woodsheds I taunt with the shadow
of my flowering branches, which refused to become
futile phantom limbs destined for the wood pile.

Now I proudly lift my whispering blossoms
into the spring sky when the sun is at its zenith
and the whole town glows irresistibly pink,

an invitation for you to emerge from hiding
with a picnic blanket to camp under my canopy
and feast your eyes on my emergent blooms.

Bring me your blizzard weary bones,
frozen by the puritanical permafrost of winter’s
sobriety — allow me to canonize you as a saint

with the ecstatic halo of my pollen on your crown,
shimmering in your hair like gems, a new definition
of holiness, a covenant only our bodies can make.

My voice is the soundtrack to a Georgia O’Keefe
painting brushing against your blushing cheeks
as you gawk at the gallery my mouth creates,

unapologetic flourishing, a climax of magnolia
blossoms triumphantly tumbling around your body.

Christian Sammartino studied religion and philosophy at West Chester University. He is a Library Communications Technician at Francis Harvey Green Library. His poetry is influenced by life in the Pennsylvania Rustbelt near his hometown of Coatesville. His work has appeared in magazines such as Ghost City Review, Voicemail Poems, Yes, Poetry, and Rogue Agent Journal. You can find more of his work on his personal blog.