To dart from the chapel
On your winged feet
Laughing in impish delight
You are such a happy heathen.

It has been a decade.
Of bitter wine and north stars
Fidgeting in basilica prisons
Crossing our bodies and our eyes
And now, he whispers to me,
As the bells ring of hellfire.
He can longer feign fear.

He rises up like David
Like Daniel
Like Veronica
Who is he to fear Goliath
Or Lions
Or Roman guards?

He rejects the stations
Because he doesn’t want to stop moving.
He marches around these hallowed halls
Blaring trumpets and rebellion hymns.
Oh Jericho, your walls are bound to fall.

His beaded noose may be lifted from his neck.
The holes in his hands may be healing.
And he may be the damned.
But they taught him felix culpa.
And now all his sins are happy.