Three Poems

Creed

When I haul my carcass up from my creaking knees
to mumble the old form
(stubbing my tongue on the brick of a new translation)

humble me, Lord, to accept the awkward history
of these your mysteries,
a plotline tangled as the morning news,

a bitterness in the mouth. First, Constantine,
pig-headed in the face of disagreement,
yelling ‘Impious fool!’

And Athanasius, wily, on the run,
a glamorous bandit, sending in his thugs
to rile up orthodox riot.

Councils, anathemas, excommunications,
exiles. Seventy years of holy terror,
the violent bearing it away:
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