Poetry Fruit Corner

Red-Handed

for a host of martyrs
comes into this surge
sons of sons taken
and daughters of daughters
wed, raped and hungby
hook, shah and Qomish crook
first time as tragedy
second as tragedy heightened

and the blood, as red
as the paint on the frescoes
of each martyr in turn
except them without use,
virtue, a tin of vice
bathes pleading hands
thrown out as columns
measuring Cyrus' people

caught red handed
caught and taken
to be cut into mere grief
relic slipped under earth
speechless, unheard
fading from the instance
of the butcher's slice
embraced by nameless quantity

by Courtney Bernays