Curse

And the Silver Tasted Like Blood

And I'm a stranger to this city, thirty silver pieces

I pay to cross the highway – that was all I carried,

smoky coins, old cigarettes, and the taste of ash in

mouth. I wear a scarf tight, right, to cover the

immortal bruise. Nooses are the new fad, don't you

know? And street preachers shout out to cast Devils

from the towers that lick the sky, offering salvation

in little pocket Bibles. I stow one away for safekeeping,

and a mourning dove cries out: let my people go, us

outcasts and betrayers, Sicarios and Iscariots, I

know the blade well, know a promise I once made, that

my greatest love must be kissed into rusty oblivion.

In Gethsemane, I watched Him bloom. I cut roses from