From Rattus: Bears the Punishment (poem)
Bears the Punishment
I am proof of God’s existence
Proof, to assemble it, I construct in opposition
I make the non of a thing its being
I am the eye of the storm
Meaning seeks me
I am taught by taped confessions
Flakes of soul reduplicated
Defenestrated stiffs of history
Waters that lead critics of mediocrity
To heaviness, from which the caste of angels
Grants you art, by human hand created
What to the buryiage of true minds
Admits wrong-footedness
The cast of characters were these
An unwise crone, a witch, a servant
What says the first, entering a crayoned roadway
How, the director wants to know, does the audience
Get from her the essential message
“Too sure of myself,” is her suggestion
“I did what seemed citizenly, when no one yet
had bought and sold the assets of authority, when
you obeyed them, if they asked your silence.”
(On pain of death)
And what of witches, are they too, made less and more
than they ought to be, still dressed in the conical hat but
Made to cackle empowerment in corset and fishnet
What motivates you?
“My role is to stand and hear, be my own claim of innocence
To carry like other green persons of myth
a burden of public toxicity.”
Servant!
“I forget what was the original idea of me.”
Caught Alone
Dispel
(2019, Stephanie Foster)