You wilt, pouring your knife-raw pain out
From bared-throat eyes, liner smeared,
Rivulets worn through facial powder, coursing
In sacrificial drips to fall on the back of my hand,
That fails to soothe your arm, but feels your agony
Transmitting through skin conduction.
As I draw my fist back to my face,
And try to wipe away my own frustration,
The moisture wets my lips, moves me;
It sears my soul to know that this dampness
Burned you in its departure,
Belies it's life-giving nature, denies hope.
I, who bring you before the bench,
Must explain the evil workings of justice,
Why Themis wears her 'fold and turns sightless
From your misery ('None so blind . . .'),
And yet I, the naive cynic, insisting that
Law's duty is to eschew the arbitrary.
Does this scheme, then, seem logical to you:
That the innocent must remain in fiendish den,
Robbed of his lambskin, dressed to wolf
Hope from the next generation, because
The shepherd and the dogs are lost to us,
In their duel o'er the power to control the flock?
We who hear the lambs cry in other arms,
Yet must abide by synthetic boundaries,
Cannot explain why relevancy excludes
Your sacrificed heart, or why such terrors you
Read in the nursling's eyes, are unduly
Prejudicial to the rights of the beast.
Best interest? Who speaks so noble, yet deafens
The world to the bleating of the humble kid?
As I seethe from frustration at Deliberate Ignorance,
I must promise to find a way, a defile, a crevice,
Not to hide the babe from harm, but to lie in wait,
To spring forth, and slit the bonds of the victim
As he creeps forward to drench the altar in tears.
