One more miracle—all the deceased pope needs
for sainthood. Perhaps he’ll go the classic route:
a child lifting himself from a wheelchair, walking
with the shaky toddle of a newborn foal; a blind man
suddenly gifted with vision. Either of those will do.
Or another French nun cured of Parkinson’s, just like
the last one, writing and walking again after devout
prayers to the passed pope. Do miracles count if
they happen more than once? They must. But
think of the miracles come before him: oceans
parted, fish multiplied, water turned to wine—who
among us hasn’t wished for that one? Remember
the lepers, all ten of them, miraculously rid of pus-oozing
lesions, each crag of a face gone smooth. Remember
waves with strength enough to hold a man in his march
across water. Devils cast into a herd of swine,
then the whole lot of them drowned in the depths
of the sea. Those squeals and shrieks must haunt him,
the dead pope, as he awaits a final miracle of his own.
Ours is a difficult time for wonders. Marys’ tears
are revealed as simple condensation, ceramic statue faces
covered in microscopic cracks. An Italian Madonna
weeps blood, but DNA tests later prove the fluid
to be male. And on e-Bay, the Blessed Grilled Cheese
Virgin Mary kit goes for thousands of dollars. The pope
must be rolling in his crypt, aching for the days when
it seems miracles were a dime a dozen and never
questioned. When the story goes that three days
after brutal crucifixion, a man returned to bodily life,
and no one thought to call him a zombie.