Honoring the Dishonorable Emperor

This poem first appeared in Poems for Ephesians, a series of McMaster Divinity College and edited by D.S. Martin. Read it and other poems on the site HERE.

On the edge of another divorce,
He wielded the pages of Scripture
Like they were the hexagrams of the I Ching.
Hemmed in on either side
By a parapet of two lines
Desperately needing to be proven complementary
Or the relationship must end
Or the furthering of the universe
Would be threatened.
How did the vertical and horizontal
Beams of the cross not harmonize
Opposing forces?
Might not husbands now love unloveable wives?
Might not Holiness reconcile sinners?
Railing against the thought,
He moved to the ground.
Are you suggesting that I stand there
And let her crucify me?
Are you?