Ceremony

At the end of the story,

When the plague has arrived,

The performance can begin.

Displacing flimsy heaven

And its contraptions, now

Come practical urgencies:

Getting the price of salvation,

Divined from the guts of birds

Or from cruciform insects. Like

The savior Oedipus, kittens

Are histrionic: defiant swagger

Then ritual flight in terror.

“The soul of the cat is the form

Of its body.” In Christendom,

Civic mourners were hired

To walk the stricken city ways

Chanting: “I am sick, I must

Die — Lord have mercy on us.”