Mathew before Ethiopia

I counted on him
more often than my money
that poor unrestored saviour
and what did it profit me.

Only uncollected debts
and words words words
poured from a ever open
galilean peasants gawp.

Yes he spent his meagerness
on everyone who asked for it,
and even those that refused
were blessed by his surplus.

Now I am back in Capharnaum
a tax man smelling of copper
a Roman spy in the synagogue
foreclosing on my afterlife.

He'd have hated that.



John G.Hall(C)2005