Lorenzo was mortar for the church
he built, gathering wild birds
for the rafters and fruited trees
for their food. He carted stone
and hoisted, he pestled, he block-
and-tackled. Persecuted
by Valerian and about to be
arrested, Lorenzo goat-herded
the church’s wealth, distributed it
to the poor. He paid the unmade
orphans, clothed the lepers
in money. He sold the sacred
vessels, the varied trestles.
He chased out the birds—
all to increase his offering
to the world. Valerian demanded
Lorenzo deliver the money
and so Lorenzo pointed to
the lepers and said,
This is the treasure of the church.
For this jape he was immediately
seized, was released from
holding on to some of his blood,
for this he was grilled alive
on the steps of the temple.
and called out half-way through,
It is well done, turn me over.
For this jest he became
the patron saint of comedians
but what’s funny is that
no one mentions what Valerian
said in return, some sorry heckler
on a throne of gold.
The story finishes in the grill
marks across his chest
like rafters of pain holding him
aloft. No one mentions
the absolute end when
Lorenzo’s head left his shoulders
with a snicker of the blade
and the birds chortled away
into a sky fraught with distant clouds.
Jeffrey Thomson, author of the forthcoming Museum of Objects Burned by the Souls in Purgatory, is a memoirist, translator, and editor. He lives in Maine.
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