Virgin Mary, evidently
covered in her excrement, she
times contractions with the wind, which
moves like breath through upper boughs
The noise inside is getting loud
An archangel of blood and piss
Effluviatic sacrament
Enthusiastically, Joseph,
that famous cuckold from the myth,
he grips her hand, watches her pain,
washed in placenta to his wrist
The donkeys and the camels spit
The lambs look on with innocence
and Lucifer, the barn’s old cat,
licks up the blood from the wet hay
Joe strips the caul from Jesus’ face
The mooncalf born, the Nazarene
Half Caliban, half Prospero
He’s swaddled in a burlap sack
The mother asks the Narrator
if she will ever get him back
after the prophet’s deed’s achieved
The Narrator says honestly
“Who knows?” And as the thunder cracks–
submachine guns, Hummers, masks–
they raid the barn and draw them out
They shoot the camels in their skulls
They fall together, slumped, their humps
comprising quite an awful pile
Mary is stripped and Joseph bound
They pull the police truck around
The tear gas burns the infant’s nose
Into an infant’s cage he goes
Incubator for illegals