The Unconfirmed Miracles at Puraquequara

      First came reports of a leprous child who touched

      the shrunken hand and was healed. A barren

      woman pressed it to her womb and conceived.

      Other claims followed — a manioc crop flourished

      when a farmer danced the hand over his field,

      a priest cast out a possessed boy’s demon when

      he used a finger to make the sign of the cross

      on the boy’s body. Whenever a believer paraded it

      down church aisles, the square holes in Christ’s wrists

      closed. The man who discovered the shrunken fist

      in the mouth of a dead jaguar said his manhood

      doubled in size. I knew where it had come from,

      this message that my daughter’s body was still alive

      and surely growing, but I said nothing. The town

      had waited so long for a miracle, and it was finally

      here, enriching the poor, emboldening the meek,

      carving acrostic mysteries into the trees. So when

      I caught it trying to escape the reliquary, I thought

      I had no choice but to leash it to the altar. That’s when

      the manioc crop molded and the woman delivered

      a stillbirth with flippers for feet and eyes

      like small black planets. Demons returned to the boy.

      He shook so hard he struck his head on a rock and died.

      When the hunter went mad and strangled his wife, the whole

      town was relieved. We knew what to do. We paraded him

      to the city square where he wept — Where’s my wife? —

      as the priest prayed — Deliver us — and we all shouted —

      Thief! — until his body stopped swaying and we cut

      off his hands. Startled pigeons roosting on the church

      roof took flight when they heard the clapping.