The Official Version

I’ve often wondered why
on the night the Romans took Jesus
they didn’t round up all the disciples
and end it right there and then.

That would have been
the logical, imperial thing to do.
No reason not to.  No reason not to think
they hadn’t done it before

to other revolutionary cells they’d found —
they were at the time
a more political threat to empire
than a spiritual one.  Something 

smells off, always has.
Maybe we’ve got the story wrong
and Jesus cut a deal — leave them
alone, you can have me. Maybe

Jesus wasn’t taken, but instead walked in — 
maybe with the Magdalene by his side? Maybe
Judas hanged himself after in shame
or maybe he didn’t do himself in at all? 

It’s possible nothing is right in any of 
the stories, and it’s all a myth, an
official narrative. A blank slate
scribbled on in haste.  Whatever

the backstory, the official version
makes for good reading, good platform,
good grounding; still, I can’t help thinking
of someone, one of the original twelve,

sitting grizzled in a cave somewhere
during a later revolt, listening to myths
being made all around him and muttering,
muttering, that no one there knew the half of it,

then turning to the wall to sleep in guilt
and grief, thinking back to the early days
when they were all together and it all seemed
like a new world was only a burst of bloodshed away.