Excerpt from

Something of Consolation

. . . I thought
of murder, then, and the idiots
and simpletons men elected and what
they removed from me. . .
if that was murder
it was also an answer.
If it was an answer then every man and woman
is an Abraham with his knife drawn
above the only Isaac
whom we must lose to get back. . . .

(c) Bruce Smith, 1991