First baseman
for the King James Bible Martyrs,

my favorite guy
in the whole New Testament,

all those arrows sticking out of him
like a pincushion.

Sebastian, prince
of the partially punctuated,

looking
woozily upwards

as if trying to remember
the prayer for aspirin.

A for-real tough guy;
the record says

that after he survived
his public skewering,

after he healed,
he found the magistrate

who nailed him up
and asked, “Remember me?”

Cudgeled,
dumped head down

in the common privy,
this time completely dead,

for which he earns my
ultimate respect.

In this realm of, generally speaking,
lowered standards

(unfinished thoughts,
unspoken words),

he was an arrow
shot like insight

(sharp point, little feathered stem)
into the world

not hard enough
to get all the way through,

who wouldn’t quit
till he was finished.

Remember when you
were more like him?