JOE AND MARY
"Queen of Heaven, Star above the Sea, I'm as full
of sorrow as a cello. Bless me with the dowry
of your smile. O be my bighearted bride."
So he offered her a ring inscribed: "I'll boil your eggs
and darn your wounds and wring you out
like a rag." She'd keep his life immaculate
as a slick delivery room.
So, dewy-eyed, they got engaged
the way young couples do, except
that mornings shook her stomach out
and, lo, it also rounded out
like a big balloon with an eye.
His fumbling kisses bumped her lips.
He read her breasts like Braille. And late one night,
he dreamed an angel said succinctly, "Marry Mary.
Tell you what. I'll guarantee a son."
SPECIAL DELIVERY
Mary watched a brief scene staged
with a vision's luminous flats. A seraph read his lines
from parchment, stuttered like a timid boy,
and flared like the sun when he bowed.
STAR OF BETHLEHEM
The starship, like a silver lobster, scuttled through the waters
of the void, until it, tentacles wriggling, nestled
in a fixed orbit high above the coastline of a sea.
Glare, like spiders, scurried along its big, metallic claws.
Sharp instruments informed the crew
that winter gripped the realm.
Then an anguished voice cried out
below, registering red as they scanned,
and the camera zoomed to a rustic town
where babes were butchered live.
"A really great king must rule this rock," one alien laughed.
THE WHIP HAND
Fear freezes. Hope thaws. Thus, the willpower
of prophecy, the electroshock therapy,
the fuel like a bowl of steamy soup.
The years had aged a tale of the eastern star.
(Every Hungary promises itself a win.
Every Cuba craves a Bay of Pigs.)
And a trio of priests had read papyrus scrolls, up
on all the ancient caves and oaks.
Then a comet with a bridal veil would check the sky.
A star was born. It's Bethlehem or bust!
Better than a predictable earthquake or an Evel Knievel jump
or a Shirley Temple tap dance, stoned.
And Herod took the Wise Men in like three Gromykos. Nyet!
"King of the Jews," he purred.
"The comet points its silver finger here."
Now if you were king, what would you have done
with this thorn on the bloom, with this fledgling's clenched fist?
And you can imagine Joseph's face, Mary's sigh,
when three smart grandees blazoned Christ
a JFK, a King for a Day, a This Is Your Life in reverse.
So Fate cast Jesus in the role.
A prophet took the leather whip in hand.
HEROD
(He has swapped my thunder for gurgles and bubbles,
played the devil with my famed magnificent reign.)
"Fetch the child," he said. "So I may--
lay my hands on him." Ha-ha!
But the wise men trumped his trick as wise men would,
and the news inflated a purple vein on his brow.
"Oh, where is this fake, this ridiculous joke?"
And a hush, like a round stone, rolled on the scratching quills.
So, too, may love cross lives.
