Christ had a cripple under each arm
the way people use crutches.
He had a hard glossy thick tongue
like the leaf of a camellia
and it was hanging out.
He had his picture taken this way.
He looked beat and strangely triumphant.
After all, the sun was shining again.
But the more you looked at the picture
the more you understood
exactly what those words meant:
the sun was a siren, the shining
was its singing and its song was “again.”
Again and again you looked at it
and it always looked as if it had just been taken,
as if the cripples were being paid a day’s wages
for five minutes’ work and the camellias
had just torn off their leaves and given them away.
And you got the feeling you too were donating your time
just looking at it when you could be doing other things.