The Straw Manikin

after Goya

The hooded penitents have passed – the shackled
Nazarenos holding their long candles – and the altar boys,
carrying the trappings of the Passion on their pillows:
the hammer and nails, the crown of thorns, the chalice
and the pliers; the soldiers’ flail, the soldiers’ dice.

What shall we give him? The straw man is sick.
We’ll finish him off, and beat him with sticks.

The pasos have drifted away: statues of full-size
wooden Christs and Virgins painted till they came alive
– glass eyes, glass tears, eyelashes of human hair,
ivory teeth and nails – on floats borne by fifty men,
invisible under curtained palanquins.

Poor puppet, I think he wants to die.
Poor puppet, he wants to die.

The bands have dispersed. The slow march of the drums
that marked the time, the mournful trumpet
piercing the night. The crowds gone – and the brotherhoods:
The Star, The Bitterness, Vera-Cruz, The Thirst,
The Spearthrow, The Seven Words, Silence.

Give him some snail-water, that’ll be best,
then pitch him, and toss him, until he is dead.

Four women are left, each holding the corner of a blanket,
laughing at this doll of a man they’re flipping up in the air
till he starts to come apart. A fop with rouged cheeks
and a pigtail – a loosened Christ, or Judas, or just a man,
falling: the body spilling chaff, some hanks of straw.

I think the manikin’s ready to die.
The manikin’s ready to die.