The Temptation of Saint Anthony, and: Judas Kiss, and: Last Lament for Judas

The Temptation of Saint Anthony

Restorer of Lost Things, you resisted drowning, turned from your reflection in Lisbon’s rivers, looked west, past the castle of St. George waiting like a pup on the doorstep of God,

for the sun to set the sky on fire.

In and out of love with everything, you held yourself tight from the appearance of spoilage. Seventeen, impervious and water-ready, you sailed for Coimbra.

The streets of Alfama fell away, a dropped net. You skimmed cold avenues and leaned into holes in the ground, yearning to be burned at the stake or pierced by lions.

You were an ark and the world was bankrupt.

How we imagine you were tempted— an elephant trampling in tempera by the sea, a fish, gondola, or cloven hoof in gold leaf near a castle’s ruins, a bare breast hanging like an open eye in the dark.

I wonder, Fernando, surrounded by so much silence, might the mind whorl itself into oblivion?

Might you have failed, lover of the cross, dragging yourself above the flat horizon like a dingy gull, needed forgiveness, sinking, then rising toward heaven?

Judas Kiss

Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. And Judas went to the chief priests and the officials of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. They were delighted and agreed to give him money.

—Luke 22:3–5

Judas was a skeptic. Blood. Bread. Wine. Everything tasted heavy.

The Sanhedrin scanned the feathered scriptures.

Jealousy fell on Judas like sawdust, burned his eyes, lined his tongue with wood.

“Don’t take yourself so seriously,” the Sanhedrin said.

Poverty lit on Judas’s shoulder, its talons grazing the crease of his armpit. Poverty licked the coil of his ear, singing songs to him that hadn’t been written yet: One glad mornin’ when this life is over, I’ll fly away . . .

The Sanhedrin fingered its tassels.

There was no escaping hunger. Judas swallowed hard. The moon touched him with light. Night poured from his mouth.

Last Lament for Judas

Where you are going, there is no light, or the light will be so dim that shadows will float above the ground transparent as feathers, bleeding, forever dark, into dark.

Periodic shimmers will give no warmth, and though each slice of spilled light will seem to be a cracked doorway, it will fade as you approach.

Will you leave me though I give to you?

Love, you will fumble about in that perpetual grayness, not knowing if the wilted leaf, the shivering hand, you hold is mine, or another’s.

Here is my hand beating limply. Here is my hand that falls to earth, pulled down by plain gravity.