Scapegoat by Patrick Theron Erickson

The Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.*

Now if it is laid on him
it is no longer on us

We no longer have to
lay low

We can arise
take up our beds
and walk

we cripples

as the lame
are wont to do

For he who takes
our wrongs upon himself
also takes our infirmities
and makes us whole

There is but one commissary
for these goods

We call it Bethesda

It is open for business
and you don't need a commissary card.

*Isaiah 53:6

Patrick Theron Erickson, a resident of Garland, Texas, a Tree City, just south of Duck Creek, is a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself. Besides a chapbook, Better Late Than Never (The Orchard Street Press,2022), his work has appeared in Quiet Diamonds: The poetry journal of The Orchard Street Press, Summer 2021, and in Penwood Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Sheila-Na-Gig online, among other publications, and more recently in Smokey Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, The Charles Carter, and Shift.