Kissed Under the Moorish Wall

116

A savior is what the flesh wants

like a door into grace

with rough cheek and rouged brain

the neck of state gapes as it turns a welted face.
A cut ear beneath an umbrella

and jesus, a tenor, a figure between mary and the footlights

taking up the pen and writing the dusk, leaving the heart behind.

And I, Martha, whisper up the evening

and turn the sword toward the wind

steering a word like a hand to the lost