Matthew 4:1–11

Leather-winged
I wheel
over dunes.

Dimpled crests
resemble rippled
seabed sand.

Peering through
the centuries
I witness

future blots:
rusted armour,
helicopter husk,

sphincters
in the dirt
where mines

blew out.
Striations
made by scream.

But now
a figure
clarifies

from distant
shimmer-heat.
What myth

do you believe?
In one, I was
the first beloved

of the father.
Favoured, soaring.
Almost son.

Now comes this
gaunt ascetic
bleared with dust.

Underneath
that mug
I can divine

determination
or brute will
to undergo

all tortures
only to revive,
revered by mobs

exempt from reckoning
because he bled.
Better free him

from disciples’ kisses.
From that father
thundering above,

demanding praise
and blood. But first,
observe. Let him sit

with hunger, swelter.
Then advance:
So you’re the son?

Make bread
of rock.
You’ve heard

his blithe reply.
He who fed
his hungry hordes

on bread he multiplied.
I scoop him up.
Set him on a pinnacle.

Prove yourself
and jump.
He won’t.

Up again, till Earth’s
a speck, we soar.
It’s yours.

Just worship me.
He says: Away.
I worship only God.

And so I slink
away. Let him
believe he won.

This planet’s mine,
for aeons.
I will clutch

it to my burning
breast, exude
in increments

the toxins I
have stored
since my disgrace.

Armies clash.
Deserts drain.
Even oceans parch.

No son but still
a sun, I fling
unflinching light

on all the brute
abominations
you enact. I wilt

your harvest, blight
your flock, await
the fated final dusk

when I am free
to slump, exhale,
and fold my wings.

 

 

---