Judas and Bethlehem's Boy

preexisting
condition, panic-striken
betrayer, beg for your pardon,
your wife's a poor woman, her
anonymous letter is irrevocable
by unanimous decision, the best
thing you can do for your husband
is let go of him and assure him his
sentence fits the crime, 

slavery based
cotton production,
they pray for the crop
of diversity to Bethlehem's
Boy, a swearing whiskey-drinking
mob brought in full view of the scaffold,
Mr. you'll want to dig into a well-researched
book on the Civil War, Lincoln's not here to issue
a proclamation on a common enemy of mankind -
signed, the Cottonbalers.

Copyright Ms. Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist