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And there followed Him a certain young man . . .

---Mark 14:51

You learned, somehow, of Judas' perfidy,        

his evil plan, spawned by his own conceit:      

thus, Neaniskos, to Gethsemane                  

(where Jesus had gone, late that night, to pray)  

you ran---having arose so hurriedly                   

(fearful the temple guards might get there soon),   

that you had flung around you just a sheet       

upon your adolescent nakedness).                 

But Judas, with the guards had---nonetheless---   

arrived, seized Jesus, and took him away       

beneath the dim light of the waning moon.      

Some young men there, thinking you beautiful    

(long-haired, slender, and delicately framed),  

wished to subject your beauty to their lust---  

thinking to inflict rape and sodomy             

upon you (they were not the least ashamed      

to scheme this).  As they lunged at you to pull 

the sheet---and did---a sudden gust             

of wind distracted them, that you might flee    

away naked.  Frustration raged through them;    

but, fearful that this could lead to a late     

arrival, turned back toward Jerusalem           

to see the high priests cajole and berate       

that country rabbi out of Galilee,

and then impose death as the penalty 

for speaking all those words of heresy.

Starward