ST. KEVIN AND THE TEMPTRESS
after Heaney
After that business with the blackbird, Kevin
sore-shouldered from his mortifications –
the lent-long arms reach and supplications
in service of life’s mysteries and flights -
lay himself out, spread-eagled in paschal light,
in a copse of alders, cones and catkins,
and slept the sleep of a child of God.
Waking to a woman fast astraddle him
in ways he’d never ere experienced
and sensing frenzy in his nether regions
so lovely that it must be mortal sin,
he strove against the ginger-haired Kathleen
rubbing her warm unguents against his parts
whilst writhing midst her own deliriums,
pressing the palms of her hands to his heart,
as if riding the tide of Love’s deep river,
grunting approval and grateful te deums –
a prayer their bodies made entirely.
Whereupon the monk came to his senses
and grabbing the temptress by her attributes,
in one guilt-warped spasm of rectitude,
tackled her into the lough’s chill waters,
the better to chasten, he thought, brute nature,
mighty as it is, O God, and fraught with danger.
Thomas Lynch/Milford MI 48381
Thomas Lynch is a poet, essayist and fiction writer who was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is a funeral director in Milford Michigan with a home in West Clare Ireland. Critically acclaimed American poet, essayist, and undertaker Thomas Lynch joins Emory University’s Candler School of Theology this semester as the McDonald Family Chair on the Life and Teachings of Jesus and their Impact on Culture.
In this role, Lynch will address ”The Feast of Language” at April 17, 7:00 p.m. at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in Atlanta.
