The Concession Pilate Never Made

Dawn found them sleeping like children

their buttocks bare

the rich togas draping the doors

the fountains playing the perfumed streams

Where was birth to place them in

but this domain

dawn would rule to reason no scepter

for the planet was perfect

their gods

had ordained it such in many past seasons

But the senator had heartburn and his mistress

had her menses

the sheep cast their young

O children in your childish dream

what said

your gods and your goddesses to this

Had they found them different, the senator

or his concubine

and the worms entering them

the shepherds drunk and sleeping on the hill

If the fashion should change but sleep

your buttocks bare, the senator bilious

the shepherds ranging to another, a foreign land

the rod a serpent where the savior passed