Saint John laughed on the stairs, a mystic child
with sun waking the wine. When cancer woke
his ulcerous skin, he chose to be reviled
in Úbeda. Nothing could paint the smoke
of his one candle dark. In his black cell
he drank the science of his obscure love,
who came, who joined him and serenely fell
with him untellably. The black above
the earth was daybreak in his blood. San Juan
sat on the floor, babbled, and lived beyond
the word. Felicitous. The abscessed flesh
was nothing. 1591. A pond
of light. He drank the body of love, its fresh
illusion. Until death he lived with dawn.