Ecce Homo

Schlepping their expectations across the unpromising

land like one of his father's roof beams,

this fish in the desert leads his company, his words

remembered and revered; never a chance

to sit around and shoot the breeze.

No one to confide his human fears.

If he looks at Mary--all the girls seem

to be called Mary--or talks to her alone

the men glower and sulk.

Sometimes he wishes he were an older god.

Who has a better claim to wine

than he? Old Bacchus and Silenus get

to lift a jar; all he gets to raise is Lazarus.

Just once he'd like to be a normal guy.

But even if he tells a dirty joke, he knows

they'll never write that down.

originally published in Smash Cake magazine