Poem

Wayne Johns

CONGRESS OF THE SHROUD

This shadow fused into the cloth is not
some medieval monk's deception, as once

presumed. DNA analysis determined
the dried blood is type AB and this must be

the impression of a crucified man. But who?
The closer you get, the less you see.

The outline shows most
clearly in negatives of photographs.

So I've exposed a close-up of the face
a dozen times, in various tones,

as though each version told another story.
But there is no story. Only the blunt fact

of the abused body that bled and left
this silhouette in the herringbone twilled linen.

Scorched and saved in 1532
from a fire in the chapel in Chambery,

where those Poor Clare nuns stitched
thirty patches to restore it. And it survived

all these years so scientists could find
that the fabric contains grains of pollen

from 58 species of plants. But neither
radiography nor microbial analysis

will ever be able to tell us if this
particular crucified one

would have given his life to leave us
this relic, or even what the woman

must have been thinking as she lifted
the shroud, and preserved it—

like a seed or spell—to cast
upon our field of drought.

Wayne Johns

Wayne Johns received the first annual Frank O'Hara Award for his chapbook, An Invisible Veil Between Us (Thorngate Road). His poems have appeared in Image, The James White Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, and Mid-American Review, among others. A native of Atlanta, he currently resides in rural North Carolina with his partner of 16 years, and fellow writer, Rodney Jack. Other poems can be found online at Atlanta Rainbow Muse http://www.atlantarainbowmuse.com/?cat=12 and Lodestar Quarterly http://www.lodestarquarterly.com/issue/12

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