… their nipples were cut, thus rendering them ineligible for kingship … the suckling of a king’s nipples was an important gesture of submission.
—Eamonn P. Kelly, “An Archaeological Interpretation of Irish Iron Age Bog Bodies”
Only a torso now, the head
long severed from the neck, pelvis
twisted off like a stubborn root.
Remember the worn jacket
of his body pressed
in the bog; above, the galaxies
of cotton grass turned
inside out, like little souls
among the eyebrights,
the stitchwort. No place
to leave a man alone.
And under each nipple
a deep incision, blade width.
Even then, they needed boys
like me—to leave power
in our wake, to dip our heads
and take to the soft
pink mound. I would have felt,
then, the making of a king;
known God, through my lips,
entering the body.