Doubting Thomas

 

They sat all around a table

All eleven

All in a circle

 

But for Thomas

Who was

Conspicuously Absent.

 

Then it happened.

 

Jesus,

In a light bright from heaven,

Appeared.

 

All but Thomas.

 

Later he asked for proof,

Doubting Thomas.

 

So much for faith.

 

Overwhelmed by a moment’s absence,

Its buoyant virtue sank,

Plunging Thomas into the abyss of doubt.

 

Or so the story goes.

 

We have to ask:

Did doubting Thomas

Really doubt?

 

Maybe he just wanted

What the others had.

Maybe he just wanted

What the others shared.

 

Maybe he was just:

Jealous.

 

And it,

The Envy,

Burned with intense,

Green Fire,

Burning everything away:

 

Faith,

Love,

Even God,

 

Until,

Like all men,

He begged for proof

Of what the others shared.

 

Yearning with

Intense speech to

Touch and have more

Than the Rest.

 

So that what we call

Thomas’s Doubt

Is really

 

Ever-human,

Ever-flawed,

Ever-failing,

Ever-needing

 

Love.

 

 

Mure Momento Mori

 

I found a mouse dead
Outside my house
It died, fatigued,
Down in a corner.

Nothing had killed it,
Time spilt out its life,
Pouring out its end,
Its sand running out.

I smelled what he’d left.
Putrid, sour and old,

An odor so strong
I spoored it in the air.
 

Footprints heavy hanging

Wafted widely in the wind,

They led, finally found me,

The mouse’s tattered clothes.

 

It lay: spilt, deflated,

Not stiff with death’s rigor,
But soft in the corner,
A fur-coat abandoned.

 

I held my nose closed

While I froze, bending down
To lift and throw the rags
In their final chest.

 

As I paused and peered, I saw;

A maggot crawl inside

Its hollowed eye,

Then I knew

 

The tailor, who hungrily

Emptied out the skin,

Wriggled his communion,

Inhabiting the garment once again.

​

​