I place a fresh fig on my breast,
after a suggestion:
it can cause the lump from your body
to become a small bruise and disappear.

Now hope blooms in a blossomless tree,
in the wasp that enters to pollinate
the flowers hidden beneath skin.

How many miracles have seeped
from the churches they grew by,
through the ground and into roots?

I halve and place blossoms against breast,
cool against body, ask Demeter to reveal
this fruit of autumn to those who don't believe
in all that can be kept in such a small space.

As I wait for the bruise, Cleopatra's life is taken
by an asp hidden in a basket of these small fists,
leaves are sewn like clothing and faith
steams in a poultice of figs.