A Death Foretold Poem by Chris Zachariou

In a hovel out of town a Gypsy
hammers rage and steel fashioning
four nails to kill the prophet king.

In an olive grove near a hill
a zealot kneels down and weeps
for a rabbi who is going to die.

And in a house with a red lamp
burning in the window
a woman cries for a death foretold.

She cries for all the nights
she yearned for him
and cried herself to sleep

she cries for all the nights
she searched for him
in all the men who paid to use her

and she cries for all the nights
she called for him
and all the nights he never came.