Night falls. He has been executed.

From Golgotha the crowd descends and winds

between the olive trees, like a slow serpent;

and mothers watch as John downhill

into the mist, with urgent words, escorts gray, haggard Mary.

To bed he’ll help her, and lie down himself,

and through his slumber hear till morning her tossings and her sobs.

What if her son had stayed at home with her,

and carpentered and sung? What if those tears cost more than our redemption?

The Son of God will rise, in radiance orbed;

on the third day a vision at the tomb

will meet the wives who bought the useless myrrh;

Thomas will feel the luminescent flesh;

the wind of miracles will drive men mad, and many will be crucified.

Mary, what are to you the fantasies

of fishermen? Over your grief days skim insensibly, and neither on the third

nor hundredth, never will he heed your call

and rise, your brown firstborn who baked mud sparrows

in the hot sun, at Nazareth.