Jim Wright

James Wright
"Saint Judas"


When I went out to kill myself, I caught
a pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
my name, my number, how my day began,
how soldiers milled around the garden stone
and sang amusing songs; how all that day
their javelins measured crows; how I alone
bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.

Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
the kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.