5 poems
And he cast down the pieces of silver
in the temple
their lamps abandoned between
the gnarled branches of
Gethsemane
the five virgins
in a clean white house, bored
their bare feet amongst
bundles of mint,
of anise, of cumin,
they stand motionless–
the husk of a widow’s house
picked clean by vultures
for there prophecy
is unspooled
and quantified
and delivered
in neat packaging to the
orphans of Hakel-D’ma
bloody acre hollowed out
with burial caves in the packed
red clay (yet God is not the God of
the dead, but of the living) the potter
received this traitor. His blood, his guts,
his coiled soul--
yet God, by outstretched arm
in lovingkindness
sent Gabriel and Michael to
wipe his brow and
carry him to the salt flats
And he looked up and saw the rich men
casting their gifts into the treasury
the camel mare is slaughtered and
given back to the desert. Salvation
runs over a denuded hill where
money lenders examine
the sky for a familiar sign.
Show us Paradise.
palms choked with gold
encircled by chains, these stones
will be thrown out, and the widows
will lay their hands on you, and
they will bare your heart, while
the polished marble tablets
turn to dust, as the birds
tend to the lilies
I see men as trees, walking
the sun is an orb, a gateway to Sijjin
the multitude warming themselves in it
on a cracked-open branch of myrrh
the smell of his body
how it wept resin and
dried onto the rim of a cup
They crept in, and scratched
at the tattered white robe trailing the sandstone
the chapped lips of Judas
Peter looking back before he wept
the blood blossoming, choked thorns
milked eyes, touch me
They whispered
Watch, he said
he wished he didn’t
and on the sixth hour
God left
he thought of the mountain
a tangle of peonies, הגליל
thistles, a gazelle balancing on a
round rock looking towards the
water, a bird--
he saw himself delivered there
traced in light
The dayspring from on high hath visited us
Ripen me,
fold me into heaven,
breathe it into me
Cure me,
I am thy servant
the cool, clear water
of Gennesaret
brought low
Deliver me,
in bowls of incense
a slaughtered lamb (while
They turn away) on
the polished stones
of the Temple
I know not where
the sky gave birth to death,
his blood pooled in a dry lake bed
and turned to stone
O Elizabeth,
the mountains
the green rolling hills
swarming with locusts
gives way
to wandering
Come ye yourselves apart into a desert
place, and rest a while
Yahya ibn Zakariyya knelt in the sour waters of Ιορδάνης
he didn’t know his head cost one dance, but what a dance
it was, in the dim hall, her skin slick
with rose water, her bracelets gleaming
her breasts visible through a white shroud
how she moved
the sophists did not stir
they continued their reading
undeterred, uninterrupted
as kings consumed the heads of men
who once knelt in the Ιορδάνης
and saw the heavens open up
the spirit came down from heaven
as a bird in all its wildness, blurred in memory
“Be kind,” the sophists nodded, ah yes.
Kate Shapiro was born and raised in Dallas, TX. She received her MFA in fiction from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She won first place in the Summer Literary Seminars 2018 Fiction Contest. Her work can be seen in Fence.