Haven’t we done worse?
Hasn’t the lick of shame
wet our necks so we cringe
upon entering a room,
lash out to deflect?
Haven’t we smelled ourselves
in the rankness, wishing it otherwise,
but wishing on a borrowed bone?
Accusation is its own collar,
caller, choler, accusation
is its own, call her.
Have we not lied to cover
a lie, haven’t we lain with the lie
as our cover? Haven’t we turned
against the us that we are,
feigning foreign, claiming distance
or distinction, thought against thou
though thinking tis of thee, thieved
when unhungry, thieved with greed
as our grocer, with General Disregard
& Corporal Punishment, ranked by Ego & Id.
Who are we to cast stones in the glasshouse
of our fragility, when the structure
of our destruction is cantilevered
by complicity, & the huddled masses
mass behind divisibility, with some
notion that promotion counters multiplicity.
Haven’t we cast brother or mother
from the boat of we,
cast lover or another
from the boat of we,
cast caution, cast dice, cast
ourselves as castigators
of the role of we,
to be one, to be one with one,
to be the one who’s won?
(We have done. Each one of we.)
Hasn’t the lick of shame
wet our necks so we cringe
upon entering a room,
lash out to deflect?
Haven’t we smelled ourselves
in the rankness, wishing it otherwise,
but wishing on a borrowed bone?
Accusation is its own collar,
caller, choler, accusation
is its own, call her.
Have we not lied to cover
a lie, haven’t we lain with the lie
as our cover? Haven’t we turned
against the us that we are,
feigning foreign, claiming distance
or distinction, thought against thou
though thinking tis of thee, thieved
when unhungry, thieved with greed
as our grocer, with General Disregard
& Corporal Punishment, ranked by Ego & Id.
Who are we to cast stones in the glasshouse
of our fragility, when the structure
of our destruction is cantilevered
by complicity, & the huddled masses
mass behind divisibility, with some
notion that promotion counters multiplicity.
Haven’t we cast brother or mother
from the boat of we,
cast lover or another
from the boat of we,
cast caution, cast dice, cast
ourselves as castigators
of the role of we,
to be one, to be one with one,
to be the one who’s won?
(We have done. Each one of we.)