Two Brothers

In a Spanish synagogue,
Two hunted brothers pray,
May God shroud them in the fog,
May night never turn to day,
May the clergy never find them,
Never torture, never burn,
Never die in dungeons dim,
Never satisfy the worms.

Two brothers, two doors:
One sacrifice,
As the molten steel pours,
One succumbed to vice.

When night wilted, withered by dawn
Guardsmen broke the temple gates.
The two brothers had never gone,
Simply kneeled and welcomed Fate.
In prisons built on Christian zeal,
Both brothers were strapped to racks,
With each rotation of a wheel,
Ropes would pull apart their backs.

Priests tore the nails from their skin,
‘Command heretics to convert.
They chose the quieter of the kin:
Each wheel’s turn dug a foot of dirt.
When this brother snapped in half,
The other begged the guards to stop:
“I renounce the devil’s path
Christ leads to heaven’s mountain top”

Two brothers, two doors
One sacrifice
As the molten steel pours
One succumbed to vice
Which succumbed to vice?