6_behold

POPE JOHN PAUL

Behold the man framed behind windows,
stricken

John Paul
harried by death.

Il papa.

There are camera crews in every street –
and the paparazzi’s in

for the kill.
But the man does not hide;

the actor from Krakow puts death on display –
brutal as Lear, as public

as Calvary. A last performance.

Here he is thumping the lectern with rage
as his staccato voice cracks

and fades.
Here he is after his tracheotomy,

in the grey Mercedes, pale, spectral.

Now at his high window, Palm Sunday,
behind glass, speechless,

waving an olive branch: Pax. Pax.
And now at the same spot he lurches back,

his mouth wrenched open by hurricane pain,
then slowly buckling.

Ecce homo!

And outside tranquil light is flooding the square
where crowds mass

and doves are spiraling up
through the white colonnades

scattering dust,
and dust is everywhere – invisible as anthrax.