Mobstones (debt would make it easier)

Thanks to Paul, my Christian name is a Christian name,
grateful for his “before story:”
Everyone sits in a circle,
“Hi, my name is Saul–er– Paul, and I persecuted Christians.”
Everyone claps.
Were there Stephens before this one, do we,
children of a Greco-Roman-Judeo-Christian Western World,
care?

Or what of Corinth–Love–or the Roman Road?
Sometimes I wish to just kill someone,
to get a debt to span centuries,
criminals make the best evangelists, you know?

At least the guilt would make it easier to take:
a micrometers-from-death jihad thrashing,
a fire roasting in a New Guinea swine pit, or
a free burial (like Stephen)
under mobstones