imagine

in the brokered corridors

of a public library

Jesus meets Hamlet; 

would they recognize 

themselves in each other?

both brooding on vocation: being 

about the Father’s business to set 

time straight from the clap of worldly

powers: verbal, politic, demonic;

presumed mad by family, favoured by the mob

trusting themselves yet

testing the spirits; given over beyond 

themselves in their zeal beyond

world’s passion  

exhausted into clarity

do they see in each bloodied other, then,

the doors to eternity, 

their lives the texts men live, 

die, by