Bed of Nails

The one they call an imposter

Smudges bulls-eyes on his palms

With carpenters' chalk, lifts

A cross as big as an I-beam

To his shoulder. Stumbling

Down a bombed-out alley,

Adjusting barbed-wire on his brow,

He bends to catch a goat's

Saliva in a tin cup, sweat

Splashing from his eyes.

A general prods him with a baton

Up a hill shaped like a satellite dish.

Glaring into teleprompters,

He scoffs at the imposter's love

Of enemies, his parables of stones

And seeds. White-coated servants

Pour tea for journalists pecking laptops

And cell phones under a marquee,

For lieutenants tamping sand

Against the cross with gold shovels.

In a concrete apartment below,

A mother stops breastfeeding

Her son to listen to hammers

On bones, a Mercedes sputtering

Over gravel, flies thudding on walls.

She closes her son's eyelids

With her thumbs, sings a lullaby

About a gold moon soaring

From a bed of nails into a cave

Chiseled with the secrets of infinity.