the banality of dissembling

when time coagulated
into one big pool of conglomeration
there was an out of sequence familiarity

was it your grandmother
great aunt
a cousin perhaps three times removed

but for the playing out of the game
it might have been you marked by a dark angel
dressed in a dress the shape of a six pointed yellow star

must have been something in that
because they burned your brittle bones
dry like sticks
clouds of chimney dust plumes in the air

no one said
NO
even if they had
who would have heard
there was no voice strong enough

you were expendable
the scapegoat
a pile of spectacles
rags and teeth on the floor

a benign civility?
nothing benign about this incivility.


 *



love,
Eaton