Saint Alexandra’s body has decayed.
Once named martyr, her bone and skin—
calcium and collagen—has softened,
indistinguishable from black sand
on Ladispoli, where locals eat oysters,
throwing the shells into a fire. Embers shoot
from the coals, minute comets pulled
by wind. Heat chars alkaline metal
to lime; later, it will bind walls together,
durable tabby concrete. Diocletian
couldn’t have dreamed his empire
would crumble. He thought it invincible,
forged over hundreds of years.
It dissolves like soot in a charcoal hearth
or graphite grinding against yellow paper.