By Stash Hempeck
as we each silently steal
forward, stoop
to pick
up our rock, heft
the angular stone up and down
in our hand as though to weigh
its power, as though to find
that perfect balance, as though to search
out the proper side, while we imagine
arc of flight and point of impact, followed
by instant bruise or instant blood, the outcome determined
by our obtuse or acute point-of-view.
This is the secret path we choose
to tread, to halt
—if for only one brief moment—
what we know
will surely come to pass.
But still we hope
—hope pushing
against hope,
hope piling
upon hope—
that this will be the time one of us finds
courage enough to straighten
up, to firm
our spine, to cast
down that hand-held demon back
onto the darkness from which it came,
and, with the horror of honor, say,
No.
No more of this.
