by Erin Vance —
In St. Michan’s crypt, I shook hands with a nun
and a hanged man.
—or maybe it was in my grandfather’s cellar—
Regardless, I remember there was a ferret or an otter—
some long mammal,
dancing figure eights around my ankles.
After I stared long into the gaping mouths of St Michan’s mummies
—or my grandfather’s collection of corpses—
and breathed their dust deep into my bronchioles,
I walked down the street to a juice bar
and through a long violet straw
sipped cherry blood and looked directly into the sun.