in the museum hangs
an old Spanish crucifix
or what’s left of one —
a Christ now crossless
frozen in the pose of death
with arms outstretched
thin ribs laid bare
the mounting-spikes of nails
now mere empty holes in hands and feet
for seven hundred years he has slept
seeming somehow not to mind
—
he always looks this way in art
pale and strangely beautiful
and clean — so clean — except
for a neat spear slit in his side
and perhaps a scratch or two from scourging
is it because we cannot take
the horror of what we made him to be?
a curse, a calamity, a scandal
a ragged wound and not a man
maybe we cannot face what
we made God become
