Martin Robertson

Now and Then

Stray Thoughts at a Wedding

Glance lifts to a crucifix.

Form of the sacrificial Man,

drained of urgency and pain,

timeworn image, will not fix

the shifting look.  

 

Lift it again.

Naked under brutal lamps,

fine Jewish features suffering-sunk

down on the collarbone, hangs

the drawn body of a young

girl.  

 

I see Anne Frank

on the cross, offering of

our indifference, of my

indifference.  

 

You will have

your own haunter, nailed to die

on the dry tree, failed love.