A squeeze-box performs outside:
The tinny air is pumpingw
Through its half-forgotten song
Like a failing heart.
The sacred relic’s displayed
In its dull crystal and gold
For visitors to inspect
As they shuffle by.
The priests sit behind it, bored.
They are no more concerned than
Customs officials might be,
Suspicious of the queue.
The phial offers itself
As contraband of a kind,
A miraculous symbol
Taken from a corpse.
Who was this man, whose own song
We have taken for granted
Or heard only in snatches,
Worth his weight in blood?
