but it doesn't break, and neither breaks toward justice
nor away from it. It simply bends, as the bow does
before propelling the arrow where it may, agnostic
to everything but flight. I don't mean to make morality
a weapon in this way, but it already is one and has been
for some time. The shackles, after all, were explained
as saving us from ourselves, our naked savagery,
though it was their whip that licked us and left a kind
of tactile text on our bodies. The Bible will have a man
beating on someone as easily as it will have another
taking one, turning the other cheek, civilly disobedient
even when the bombs blow up in their church, not to say
saying no to violence isn't commendable, just to say
a strong case can be made for cracking a skull or two
like an everyday egg in hopes whatever golden light
resides inside shines through, throughs the crimson tide
for the rest of time so the tide will, mercifully, recede.

When we launched life

on the river of grief,

how vital were our arms, how ruby our blood.

With a few strokes, it seemed,

we would cross all pain,

we would soon disembark.

That didn't happen.

In the stillness of each wave we found invisible currents.

The boatmen, too, were unskilled,

their oars untested.

Investigate the matter as you will,

blame whomever, as much as you want,

but the river hasn't changed,

the raft is still the same.

Now you suggest what's to be done,

you tell us how to come ashore.

When we saw the wounds of our country

appear on our skins,

we believed each word of the healers.

Besides, we remembered so many cures,

it seemed at any moment

all troubles would end, each wound heal completely.

That didn't happen: our ailments

were so many, so deep within us

that all diagnoses proved false, each remedy useless.

Now do whatever, follow each clue,

accuse whomever, as much as you will,

our bodies are still the same,

our wounds still open.

Now tell us what we should do,

you tell us how to heal these wounds.