print previewback SARA BIGGS CHANEY
In Which St. Irene, Born Penelope, Is Spared by Beasts of Water, Earth and Sky
Gentle friend: I was more than my dying
Neither beast of water nor of field turned force against me
wild breath horses all their terror their lightning their small cities of dust
undid death with a sudden lulling as if etherized
made thick with sleep at the sight of me laid out on the muddy street
their hooves dropped roots in sandstone
their torpedo heads turned away away
And in the pit of vipers when the fanged bit my thighs I was
blood turned venom after which I was venom turned honey
turned greening branch in the mouth of a dove
and the raven with her one pine eye carried me a snake’s tongue
and made me to speak I said daughters I said sand swimmers
I too remember the garden
And with one with one wrenching snap as a river branching they spared me
Even the bronze oxen could not be brought to boil my tender my open
With one voice beasts spoke they said nothing of God:
Not today will you take the head of Irene born Penelope
who is terrible who does not fear her father
whose heart has been eaten by an eagle bearing a wreath in its beak— 
