The Cross

January 6, 2021

Empty his cross

took on a life

fame and infamy

of its own

Withered by sun and swollen the wood rotted down

Romans rotating home took mementos of their tour

symbols of conquest caked with soil and blood

One framed repentance

and hung it on the wall

Women came to

clean up its remains

to sell or to burn

with their spices

Raised now in 

pious memory

mimicry or mockery

Relic of salvation

splintered

severally

On January 6, as insurgents erected a gallows outside the US Capitol building in DC, others struggled to raise a cross outside of the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan