Pillar saint

Crammed onto his high
stone square, he cranes
to see the whole number
of eternity as it unwinds

its relentless gilded length,
trailed by bi-plane cherubim
and their seraphic cousins –

but he is granted only
a raw bald pate

horned thoughts
of silk and bells

an alkaline draught
from a far-off well

fire ants beading
their wrath into
his toe folds

and the sour
roar of believers
at his column base,
begging for a
sign, a word,
a fingernail of
hope for
their cattle
their bellies
their men,
a swelling on
the jaw,
cyclical
fevers,
failing milk,
the cries of a
nameless newborn –

while he awaits the

blank

of the seventh day.

SJ Lunn-Rockliffe is Associate Professor in the Divinity Faculty at the University of Cambridge, where she teaches, reads and writes about the histories of ancient religions. She works on ideas about thinly embodied beings like demons.