A comment:
DONE IN OUR NAME
I should have known
We'd killed him
Tuesday morning.
I woke up strangely buoyant,
Told my companion
"You look chipper,"
But when I bent
Over the dictionary's c's
There to catch my eye
At the corner, boldface
Were corpse candle,
Cauterize, cyanosis. . .
I should have known then
We'd killed him
Should have sensed the
Huge organism's
Sly joy, cat's paw
Batting at his eye, in
The chamber, out again
Cranky machinery of revenge
Grinding to and fro
In the night
In our name.
One headline read "REPRIEVE"
And just a block away
Another edition of the same paper
Shouted "EXECUTED."
Didn't anybody know
We'd killed him
Tuesday morning?
It was done
In our name.
All our hands
On the wheel
That sealed him
In the tomb
All our ears
Echoing with
Its metallic clang.
We all find ourselves
Murderers now
Participate
In his death, no --
More even than that --
We take part
In his crime.
We kill those youths
We beat the baby boy
Who grew up a killer
We kick his pregnant mother
Find ourselves tied
On the same line
With all these crimes.
Some revel in it
Relish the sense of an ending
Eat celebratory hamburgers
In memory of the dead boys'
Meals he ate.
Others are saddened
Diminished or angry.
But once it's done
The clock has turned.
It doesn't matter
What we said.
A man, a boy, is dead.
It was done
In the dark
Tuesday morning
In our name
And all our hands
Our hearts
Are stained.
Written in 1992, on the occasion of California's first execution after a long moratorium. . .
© 1992, Margery Snyder
