Golgotha

Very soon now the light shall die.
The Great World will be rent—
ashes, sobbing seraphim, calves
born with crabbed feet. Rain
then the absence of rain.
Wild thunder pounds in my head.

And where is the betrayer tonight?
Drunk and puking.
Sprawled across the cold stones
in some rich man’s courtyard.

Even Simon Peter has fled, while we
who have held the hands of lepers,
the women no one dares call disciples, remain
to watch midnight eat up the earth.