broken obelisk

after the storm,
cautiously and with only the
smallest taste of optimism, the one who
says she's the daughter of christ,
the house with the broken windows,
               with the dead child

how many years wasted believing
sunlight was a sin?

how many meaningless days trans
formed into empty years?

long afternoons spent carefully
phrasing your questions to god and then
the rest of your life waiting for
answers that never came and
do we laugh at ourselves now or
               at the starving?

do we build our kingdoms on the
corpses of those we've slaughtered?

in the end there is nothing but
holy land waiting to be defiled