Light-averse and lampless
he slipped like a cave fish
through Jerusalem – its countless
streets and byways –
seeking a rabbi he dared
not call rabbi.

Every sound, a threat.
Every shadow, an informer.
To be caught
was death.

No doubt he arrived
breathless, trembling,
but full of hope:
now he would hear
the secret watchword
to make Heaven’s sentries
kneel.

To find, instead,
a riddle – a thing unparsable
by any sane mind…
it was enough to make him
regret his coming.

Only later
came wisdom.
Only with time did he know
that hot cramped city
a womb; his sly
emergence from its confines
a birth; death
a hollow thing –

as he raised raw eyes
to the morning star.

Cover Photo: Nicodemus and Jesus on a Rooftop, Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1899 (Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts)