Rot Ripe for Framing

Might relics ever
Come back in fashion?
Is there any chance

That someone’s finger
Bone might ever serve
Holy reminder

Of a life well-lived,
Wonders accomplished,
Death bravely endured?

Or maybe relics
Will be wonderful
But not quite sacred,

Rare collectibles—
The way signatures,
Guitars, and dresses

Have become, but more
Potent and grisly,
The deviated,

Pickled septum, say,
Of the roistering,
Future dictator?

Authenticity
And proximity
Are always the draws,

So whatever feels
Truest and hardest
To experience

Will get the aura?
In disembodied
Eras of dreaming,

Intelligent codes,
Have Einstein’s neurons
Grown more marvelous?

No. Relics require
Something numinous
About the idea

Of a bit of flesh.
They’ll come back in style
When corpses are worse

Nuisances made more
Repulsive, not less.
To framed rot, confess.