Original Fire: Selected and New Poems

Christ’s Twin

He was formed of chicken blood and lightning.

He was what fell out when the jug tipped.

He was waiting at the bottom

of the cliff when the swine plunged over.

He tore out their lungs with a sound like ripping silk.

He hacked the pink carcasses apart, so that the ribs spread

like a terrible butterfly, and there was darkness.

It was he who turned the handle and let the dogs

rush from the basements. He shoved the crust

of a volcano into his roaring mouth.

He showed one empty hand. The other gripped

a crowbar, a monkey wrench, a crop

which was the tail of the ass that bore them to Egypt,

one in each saddlebag, sucking twists

of honeyed goatskin, arguing

already over a woman’s breasts.

He understood the prayers that rose

in every language, for he had split the human tongue.

He was not the Devil nor among the Fallen—

it was just that he was clumsy, and curious,

and liked to play with knives. He was the dove

hypnotized by boredom and betrayed by light.

He was the pearl in the mouth, the tangible

emptiness that saints seek at the center of their prayers.

He leaped into a shadow when the massive stone

rolled across the entrance, sealing him with his brother

in the dark as in the beginning.

Only this time he emerged first, bearing the self-inflicted wound, both brass halos

tacked to the back of his skull.

He raised two crooked fingers; the extra die

tumbled from his lips when he preached

but no one noticed. They were too busy

clawing at the hem of his robe and planning

how to sell him to the world.