On the Trail of the Evangelist

In this search for some coded truth

This gospel in faded Braille on a crack-ridden wall

This grail, this mirror neither convexed nor concaving in

I weigh the vines against my burdens

Will they hold my weight? And will I have to burn

Them like rope bridges—I cannot recede

Any longer, climbing these summits throwing one hook up

And then the other, hoisting myself upwards inch by inch

Locking myself out of memory after memory, moment after moment

Out of the corridors I tried and those whence I came

Marked with chalk, marked with bloody footsteps—soiled

I make my way through the labyrinth

A hasty cursory trial of every error