Months prior I sat before it –
    some ornate, tacky crucifix all shellacked gold.
Even Lenten draped, polished, robed,
It regarded me mockingly –
In a Freudian slip, you told me you had called Father Morse,
a tongue-slip of his name, “Mead” – honeyed-wine –
instead you sent an S.O.S., all red-flag alarm;
all of those bells I had shown you now ringing loud clangingly and without rhythm
the whistles going on and in so many ways.
But you – you are a Nazi orderly simply following your orders,
A ninety-pound weakling in whose face I kick the sand
Just so that once you know what it feels to be a true martyr.