Monika Herceg

as a child he caught polio
so they kept tossing him into the ice-cold water
to quench his blazing organs
but only upon taking a breath he truly burned
as if he’d absorbed the nuclear processes of the stars

maybe later saint anthony jumped in
when god wasn’t feeling it
so brother walked despite the three other diseases they found
in his spongy skeleton

he was raising unnamed birds in his head
talking to them more often than to people

there’d been one more thing the fiery sun corona left
underneath his too green skin
so that sometimes
when no one is looking
he glows in the dark