The farmhouse I pass
by the side of this godforsaken
mountain road
is a ruin, a shell,
long abandoned, empty of humanity.
Still, you’re here,
up against a crumbling wall.
Odd.
I’ve never seen you like this before,
your body stretched
along the nerves of the pine wood,
your arms raised in surrender
to a ruin,
embracing the wooden halo flaming up above your head.
Suffering in these mountains
clearly needs no cross.