‘…to Apphia our sister…’

(A prisoner,

On the basis of love)

I hang heavy weights on the thinnest wires

Not forced,

No longer a slave, better

To consider me a partner,

I own your very self,

And one thing more: Prepare

A guest room for me,

And my fellow prisoner – Aristarchus who

Implores I be what I am, and

Suddenly a man is leaking dust before me and,

I am no evangelist;

But even in the smallest book in the Bible,

Men are settling war with warm water.