Think of a crowd gathering for an execution
like an explosion playing slowly in reverse,
listen to it inhaling.

Think of how she must look, the sentenced,
hands bound, chin set, stone gaze cast somewhere
indefinite on the horizon beyond gunmetal waves,

where a ship may be disappearing,
its sails filled with chilled wind, waving goodbye
beneath an overcast sky, bored and impassive.

Think of the blade, blood-stained and worn
impatiently hanging, suddenly revealed
as the child’s scapula.

It is quiet for a moment. Then it sighs, slices
comes to a sudden wooden stop–
mortal dam unstopped, her blood reaches short for the sea.

Now the people passionately cheer
eyes alight, fires in smoldering faces,
squeaking and gibbering into the midday.

Think of someone on bent knees in an empty church
hands held in supplication, quivering lips mumbling desperate prayers;
think of him as on a precipice, permanently.