Jesus Meets the Women by Joseph Bathanti

They bump into Him shopping in Bloomfield.
It's how many years? He's skin and bone.
The hair. The beard. Some kind of radical.
But still He shows respect, kisses each one,
inquires about their health, tells them to pray,
ask anything in His name and it's theirs.
They laugh. He's probably on drugs, they say.
His poor widowed mother. Thirty-three years
old, a grown man, and still can't settle down.
The little bit He makes He gives away,
while poor Mary sits in one room downtown,
practically on welfare, day after day.
They don't mention the thorns or bloody cross.
He's not a bad kid, just a little lost.