Chapter 14: Palm Sunday

Braided palms from the marketplace
Christ dying on the cross
Christ living in a halo

Holding the eclipse in his mouth
the ancient serpent priest
tests the rain the sun the moon
marks his days
Amen
folds his hours
Amen
measures his year
from inside a blackened cave
Amen

Skeletal palm shadow
waving into the future
a man
a marker of every solstice
a dweller in every cave
braided into the hands
of humankind