The Spoils of Jerusalem

 

A hundred times taken, the city gleams

with golden domes, whispered riches, the tides

of history. Conquerors have come, dreaming

 

of the Holy of Holies, the Rapture,

the Grail . . . of a never-ending stream

of loot. My plunder? A coffee-stained map,

 

some hard-bartered trinkets, two tattered guide

books, three shekels, and just a single snapshot

of God, before the battery died.

 

 

© Michael Fleming

Brattleboro, Vermont

December 2015

 

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