The Lamentations of Jeremiah [after Thomas Tallis]
Nebuchadnezzar is in the city,

the prophets weep into their scrolls as the new king
enters the vaulted crypts of their heroes,

and the temple burns, the day becomes a day
of mourning when Jeremiah walks toward the

west, enters the caverns overlooking the sand-colored
stone facades and writes his book in silence,

the grotto becomes a ghetto. Jerusalem is dead,
the word is a hot brick on the tongue, the

young virgins sacrificed because the flesh of a woman
will always be valued higher than a man in action,

the words must never be spoken, the wounds deeper
than the creases of your forehead, the pit

of your desire is a place that time will not allow
you to go.