Michael Angel Martín

The Incorruptible

The nuns hoped for a bone or two

That they could deem a relic

To venerate who they all knew

Had lived a life angelic.

At lauds, they opened excavation;

Rotating shifts, some chanted.

Some later questioned their vocation,

By compline disenchanted.

The abbess called for one last push

Before they slid to bed.

Then one clump in, a sudden hush—

The wholly intact head. 

Michael Angel Martín's poetry has been published in Chariton Review, Worchester Review, America, Ruminate, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, Green Mountains Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Miami, Florida, with his family.