The pastor details his hunch about the cross
And conjectures, and offers
a few ways to take down
the body, the God who carries
a taste for blood. On the altar,
before him, an empty simple
cross, and a purple bouquet,
one of which, he doesn’t say,
was arranged, and one which
happened, he knows, against
serious, best judgment—
the way you might extend
a hand to an enemy, suspecting
the risk, knowing better
but offering and retracting
your bared palm over time
like a bud or a bloom opening
to a violet spring sky.
