I poured his seventh can of golden beer, 
ignored that I was kept inside his stein,
prepared a meal with scarring doubt and fear.

He dipped his bread in my dry crimson wine,
left crumbs like no betrayer should -- a trail
too wet to find. His cock would crow and dine

on me, commune the pecking order, fail
to care that I was Judas too, obscured,
and altered. I was raised behind a veil

and taught to hear the devil's mocking bird
through filtered temple eyes. I see it makes 
no sense -- perhaps that's why I'm always lured 

to black and grey. The colors are mistakes,
aren't they? I eat the stale white bread he breaks.


©2001 Peggy Putnam Owen