Emily Bilman
The Water-Web
After Leonora Carrington’s “St. Anthony’s Temptations”
Three-faced Saint Anthony, wrapped in three
layers of white ghost-linen, points his left hand
to the women of all races, safeguarding
the diaphanous world-web against greed,
pride, envy, and waste. From the globe’s amphora,
a skull-headed anthropomorphic man pours
water on the river of Time that girdles the water-
table. Currents sweep a woman’s corpse down the stream.
In the heat of the desert, demons had wrenched
the saint’s heart. The detached saint now turns his back
to the red-clad devil scheming with black ravens
above a soiled boiling water-cauldron. A pig snoozes.
Uncompromising against vile temptation, the stream
of faith sustains the saint’s stamina as our own.