“The Via Dolorosa”
by Michael Stalcup

Like Peter and like Satan we correct you
and let you know that there’s a better way:
a crown without the cross where they reject you,
an Easter with no Holy Saturday.

But you insist, so we, puffed up with pride,
all pledge to journey with you to the end,
in jail or death to suffer by your side.
And for a little while we pretend

until the rooster crows and we awake
to find that we’ve rejected you as well,
your Way of Suffering too much to take—
and so you walk alone. Three times you fell

beneath the ceaseless burden of our pride,
daring the death we said you shouldn’t have died.