Judas

Ian Crockatt

I never betrayed my wife
but my haunted friends did
wound her with passionless footage
of my mouth discovering his.

3 days it hung between us,
the suspect O
of my lips, its noose
of puckered flesh as permanently binding

as a Bedouin's kiss.
"So what if you clipped
their improbable Lord," she sniffed,
leaving for the synagogue

and her mother's. Dear tree
I don't know where to put myself,
don't tremble me
out of your arms, I'm not ready.

I see a field of clods,
domes and a peopled hill,
the carpenter weighing nails.
God's life I never betrayed her,

never will...