The Last Supper

by Rick Mullin

I: Who Among Us? (or Assassins)

Convention puts the hand of Judas
on the table. He’s the one
whose Pennsylvania lawyer screwed us.
See that hand?…The smoking gun.

A flatfish palm and flying fish—
confusion: Man or Superman?
Our CEO holds up a dish.
There’s magic in the marzipan.

But what about the blade that floats?
Accounting for appendages,
I comb through the da Vinci notes.
No handle. And no end to this.

II: No Exit

Convention puts the hand of Judas on the table.
It’s best that we identify the perp before
we case the dining hall or call in Cain and Abel.

Keep an eye on him. He seems to be unstable,
fingering his burlap money bags galore.
Convention puts the hand of Judas on the table

and his eye on the horizon through the gable
window to the left. There’s treachery in store.
Let’s case the dining hall. A call to Cain and Abel

placed at 6:04: They’ll play it by the label,
Good Cop / Bad Cop. This is no time to ignore
convention. Put the hand of Judas on the table,

clip the cuffs and get a handful of that sable
collar. “Guy’s, there isn’t any 13th floor!
No case. No dining hall. You copy?”~(Cain and Abel

on the horn). Who knew? The old “No Exit” fable
and we fell for it again. The Civil War
Convention puts the hand of Judas on the table.
We case the dining hall. No call for Cain and Abel.

III: Grace

Forgive them, for they do not understand,
these fishermen, Hasidim, and the guard.
The painter with the funny hat. It’s hard.
Yet everything has truly gone as planned.

If only they could see the simple line,
the masks of death amassed upon my shoulder.
Those masks from Mexico. It’s getting colder.
Now listen to them singing Auld Lang Syne.

He followed with the purest of intention,
the complicated anthropologist
who took the rope and hammer from the stable.
Kazantzakis’s apologist,
the man who sees and raises me. Convention
puts the hand of Judas on the table.