Uncanon

They called it a sacred heart
but it seemed to me more like a deflowering,
old blood, gone all velvety and black,
on an abandoned sheet.

But we are, they argued, brides
and bridegrooms, emblems of
the great, big nuptial thing
that entails both sacrifice and sacrament,
and ends in feasting on overcooked goat.

But I could only see
the indelible forensics of the marriage bed,
and soon, in a deepening twilight of oilsmoke and dust,
I could not tell
the face on the shroud
from a face in a crowd.