Matthew Olzmann
Saint Sebastian, After the Arrows
One summer on the lake, my friend J, told me
how a sinking boat can sometimes right itself, look fine,
then sink anyway. Like the story
of Saint Sebastian. The arrows were not the end of him.
We think “death-by-arrows” because
of how Botticelli, Titan, and Rubens painted him.
But there was a life that continued
after the archers dispersed, after every wound
was cleaned, after the artist’s canvas was sold
to some Medici or servant of the court.
He came back to life: a capsized ship righting itself;
the drowned main sheet hoisted up the mast
one last time, the captain ready
to make a final run at the horizon.
A miracle, right? That’s what I thought too!
But instead of keeping a low profile, quietly
tending sheep, knitting sweaters, or whatever,
he felt reborn. Possessed
by some righteous electricity, he shouted,
I’m vindicated! I’ll speak truth to power. I’m going
to tell the boss what I think. He marched over
to Diocletian, the same Diocletian
who, yesterday, ordered him to be executed by arrows,
and Diocletian, to no one’s surprise,
turned to his guards and said, Please. Someone, please—
club this man to death already, which, promptly, they did,
and he died, and this time the condition didn’t end.
If I were a better Catholic or a less skeptical man,
I’d see this as a parable about the power of faith,
how belief brings you back from even death.
Instead, I see the moral as something between,
“Wasted opportunities” and “What’s the point?”
How do you go from I’m dead, to I’m back,
to Damn it. I’m dead again, in so few heartbeats?
All the times we say, Never again.
We say, This time is the last time.
Several lives ago in Michigan, that friend
I was telling you about was a spirit everyone believed
was destined to implode. But he got his shit together.
He learned to sing. Took acting classes at night.
Shined through the dim winters of Detroit
until all who doubted him knew they were wrong.
This guy, who I was proud to know, lived,
I mean really lived, so vibrantly, joyously,
and when it happened—
it happened fast, like a flare shot from the prow
of some tiny fishing trawler, teetering in the storm,
taking on water, listing hard, and from the beginning,
and forever, keeling, and going under.