In the current issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review, Mary Biddinger’s “Saint Monica Burns It Down” presents a woman drawing a dramatic line between herself and a man who has mistreated her. The poem focuses on this action rather than going into details of the relationship (though the man’s affair is presented), and we are given no idea as to what will happen next in the lives of any of the poem’s three characters. Thus, this text is a poem of threshold space. A literal threshold is made of glass and habanero pepper seeds, while the longer and shorter lines expressing this act and the circumstances around it are so arranged that the work, viewed sideways, resembles another kind of threshold: a picket fence.
Within the poem’s cusp, ambiguity surrounds the fate of the “other woman” who “sipped cordial by the light of a gas stove”. The word cordial itself has overtones of warmth and happiness thanks to its alternative meaning, warm and friendly. The word also originates from Latin for heart. These two together seem to suggest some sort of connection between two betrayed women. Of course, any such connection would likely be mystical, as no literal communication between them is mentioned. If we allow for such mysticism, we must also allow for the possibility of cordial as potion (or, less magically, poison). That the woman could possess certain witchy powers or at least a knowledge of chemicals and herbs is suggested by her ability to make her peppers grow to “unimaginable lengths and heat” and by the blindness the man suffers after touching the spiked windowsill. 
This woman being identified as a saint further underscores her connection to the mystical. The visions of many a medieval nun would have caused her to be burned at the stake had they lacked the appropriate Christian gloss.
As for her being Saint Monica, one could say this poem presents a very different reason for her to be “able to exercise a veritable apostolate amongst the wives and mothers of her native town” than the “sweetness and patience” to which the Catholic Encyclopedia refers.
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Tags: Catholicism, Mary Biddinger, saints
