Poem for Lebanon

by Juan Santos

Beirut is a red crater in an infant’s back;
she has been pulled from her mother’s womb,
spine obliterated by shrapnel,
blood slipping into gasping pits of stone and smoke.

These are the demons Christ cast out, spitting blood in the president’s ear. He slips the black hood over his face, lifts his palms, his arms, opens himself in the shape of the cross, and spins in one place until there are no walls left standing, nothing between himself and the black night, himself and the stars. He will send missiles and praises in the morning. Jesus is coming soon. He will have no tongue, only a sword in his mouth. He will not come to heal the Earth, but to destroy it.