Jerusalem

Was a time when just west of there
sailors drowned their daughters for an offshore breeze.

Guy with a pitchfork was waiting for it.
Makes you wonder why your fiction is driven

to doubt through the eye of a city called
cruxifiction. With a x. Let's say x

stands for a clown so happy his eyes almost close
when he speaks. Maybe he hangs drywall

in his robe and talks like a banker talks
somehow without mentioning money.

So you stuff him through the eye of your heart
like a camel or a thread too thick for sewing

and imagine your god as the friendliest god
on the block. A slow smile and a ventricle

full of good news. If he's scared of dying
and asks the wrong question of the wrong parent

what of it. The desert is full of women
with the same name. His genesis is the tent

where women went to bleed. So is yours.
This city of crosses is not your city.

Copyright © 2008 Austin Hummell All rights reserved
from Southern Indiana Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission