Manual vs. White Collar

The Hoffmann Jesus must have made more atheists
Than Hiroshima and the Yale Divinity
Together: limpid stare as through a contact lens
And look of a shampoo commercial. All one wonders
Is, who was the model, what his later life.
The artist being Swiss, his subject may have been
A woodsman, Alpine guide, or, less improbably,
Head teller at a bank. The cosmetologist
Knew better than to show the hands, lest they suggest
One nailed between embezzlers. Were his miracles
Performed upon exchange rates? Oberammergau
Tenures its actor but conceals his years. One might
In Zurich meet up on the street with Hoffmannesque
High middle age: a neatly barbered CEO
At ease completely with the money changers, suave
In fending questions as to his associates,
Himself a parable, but saying nothing Time,
As creeping crucifixion from the inside out,
Could not say through a manumitted Nazarene
Of two-and-fifty. As the Book of Acts makes clear,
Disciples are a form of Board Room, arguments
Concerning seating precedence and all, to say
Nothing of bribery, denial, treachery.
One should not represent divinity made flesh
In such white collar form as to excuse the mob
That cried “Free unto us Barrabas” by some hint
There might not be that much to choose. White collar
crime
Sanhedrin and the Roman governor alike
Would be inclined to pardon. Rehabilitation,
Then, not resurrection, would have based our faith.
And what would be its symbol? Fish implies the fishy.