March 2: Poet of the Week, Rita Dove, "Saints"

DISCLAIMER:  This post was supposed to be published last night.

Rita Dove was the youngest person, and first African American, to be named United States Poet Laureate.  She has won the Pulitzer Prize and has received over 25 honorary doctorates.  In 2011, President Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts.  And now her crowning achievement:

Rita Dove is Saint Marty's Poet of the Week.

Saints

by:  Rita Dove

She used to pull them
from herself and count:
Have mercy, have mercy--
black-eyed peas flicked into a pot.

Why go out into the sunshine
and blustery azaleas, why leave
this overcrowded bed?
She's fat now, she stinks in warm weather.
She'll pin on a hat, groan into a pew,
spend the hour watching stained glass
swirl through Michael's boat
like holy water.

Between her knees, each had been
a neat hunger,
each one a freedom.
So many now, perishing under the rafters!
They are like the tin replicas of eyes and limbs
hung up in small churches,
meticulous
cages, medallions
swinging in the dazed air.

I'm a sucker for a poet who writes about saints