Return to Gethsemane by Ashy

She stood alone against the light between

The bowing trees; the night

Was like a shield before her eyes

All glazed like tinted glass.

So long ago since she was here

Amid the doomed- and stench of fear- where

Fusillades had roared and plundered;

Blood upon the grass.

‘Long ago’ her aging mind would

Console, promise and yet- behind

She’d heard the echoes of his tread

The strangling whisper of his pain

And mercenary fate would grin

In exchange for life she must nurture its sin

And in the dark she’d sweat and hear

The tinkling of a chain.

To he, the boy she’d never told: behind

That halo of tinsel gold, she was

The parody of an angel