Dear Norm,
If Jesus were here, naturalized, his status
miraculously transformed from wandering
Galilean leader of a longhair group of radicals
in the much contested holy regions
to a mid-western small business owner,
Mailboxes, Etc., say, with so few employees
he does not sponsor insurance, and
totally enfranchised
within our political system, I think he would want
to spend now and pay later
like all of the naked Emperor’s American caricatures,
but he would stop and listen every time
some sweaty college girl, or bearded boy,
stridently pressed him
to register to vote.
Norm, which party do you suppose Jesus would join?
His message, as a radical in the old world (the Piscean
aeon of the dying god, certain September 10 thinking) full
of short-sighted, avaricious brutality, was of compassion.
Would he outsource sneakers, compact cars,
sweat-shop sweatshirts?
Would he join those compassionate rhetoricians
in burning the world?
Would he impose centralized control, the better
to provide services?
Would he curse the barren Congressional fig tree?
This is a thought experiment, Norm. Or perhaps it’s wanking;
so hard to tell with Jacques gone.
Jacques was never really here;
like Jesus did not emigrate to the land of liberty
(it’s among you,
within you, he'd rage at the cars
queued around the drug-dealers’
block, at the velvet nightclub lines).
Jesus could not get out of the holy land.
The President’s got him at the top of a list.
Jesus isn’t going anywhere.
And if he got out,
flew to Brazil,
hopped to Mexico and then
walked across the Rio Grande,
he would still have to enlist in our army to be granted
amnesty and a shot at the prize of franchise.
But he would not. Jesus has been designated. He would
be disappeared, quietly, Norm. That’s the whole point
of the thought experiment. We could not afford to let him
wander free any more than that other guy, Norm.
We all know it.
After the miracle he’d register “Independent”
and exercise his divine will on the local school board
in the primaries. That does none of us any good, Norm.
Thank God, Norm, it is only a naïve myth from
a simpler age, before the world changed. Thank God.
- Rev. Immanuel Apost, VIII