Next to myself

Next to myself

We could not bear the sight of his privates

So we took from the river bottom

a worm-eaten loincloth and wrapped his waist.

The clotting blood held the rag,

Soaking its fibers with septic filth

of the streets. Even in the gale

the blackened rag clung to his skin.

It was supposed to be a linen undergarment

to cover his pure naked flesh from hips to thighs;

He should wear it as he went into the tent of meeting,

And when he came near the altar

to minister in the holy place;

lest he bring guilt on us who die.

It was supposed to be his pride, his delight!

He would sport it as a toddler

sports his underpants

for Grandma to see, with

panda bears and ninja turtles.

He would boast,

“Next to myself I love my people best!”

We could not prevent what happened without

Rewriting everything we knew.

His betrayal, his trial, his unjust treatment:

they followed our scheme of things.

Witless, we demanded of the fool Pilate,

“His blood upon us and upon our children.”

We should be guilty and should die.

But we could not bear the sight of his genitals;

We looked on him whom we had pierced and

mourned as for an only son.

By the rivers of Babylon now

we bathe in his blood

until a sticky paste of street dirt,

Excrement and linen fiber binds us to his loins.

The heavy veil of our devotion

with its reek of body odor

and its sweet-smelling stench of incense

parts as the High Priest enters once for all the sanctuary,

and shamelessly displays his linen drawers

emblazoned with “My people, my name, my praise and glory.”

Cleansed in the blood and washed with pure water

we follow now in full assurance of faith.