Thrum

After Dom la Nena’s “Batuque”
Il Duomo di Catania

In the crowd thronging the cathedral
this August, I’m light as Etna’s ash.
There’s room only to stand, to listen
to a priest preside over the steady thrum
of a human tide that sighs, drums marble
with leather soles, pushing me forward

to receive the moon at a mass
where half are listening, half are waiting
for the remains of St. Agatha.
The rhythm quickens in the streets,
devotees sing and try to touch her effigy.
A man steadies me as the sea surges

over land, unmoors me. All is drowned
for a moment in a litany of bells. Confetti
snows from balconies, catches in my hair,
while fire fashions itself into marigolds,
a second heartbeat, in a night the color
of aubergines. Etna’s heart, a fiery ribbon,

streams toward the towns, her voice
a murmured thunder under our feet.
In Catania, all is batuque. A bride pauses
before the camera’s light. I step out of the sea
into a street of vendors selling nuts, sweets,
pilgrim badges. At Stecco Natura,

I find a Nutella gelato, savor
the frozen like a stolen silence in a night
the temperature of sauna, in a night broke
open like a hazelnut, bone, flesh, dust
returning to dust, covering us all in a layer
of sanctity, in a layer of sweet.