Until the broken tongue in the bent form
of history’s would-be redemption unbows
from beneath the shadow of the sniper,
the nightstick, the circling drone, to find
home in a strange land and its decorated
self the stranger––
to bow again, this time before the feet
of an unwashed other, possibly unclean,
to cleanse and oil the cracked skin, to tend
and wrap the open wounds, to fester––
with anger at the noble cult that glorified
the ends that fed on broken limbs and
shattered skulls, on cages and contract
killings and called them means––
to find at the pause between tending
one and moving to the next, no fix
but flesh in its rank, ripe, hungry
wailing
needy mess, how it shakes in the
howl of a louder wind––
it will not turn,
though the turning
force insists––
the full weight
of its widening arc––
coming.
