LES TRICOTEUSES

by Paul Stevens

How dirty tricks dossier forced Oxford's female poetry professor to quit.
-The Independent

Defarge and her sisters
At the guillotine's base
Sharp-eyed examine
Each citizen's face

For non-PC thoughts
Betrayed by a glance,
An opinion, a flicker
Of least deviance.

A hint is fact,
Hearsay is better;
Conclusive proof—
An anonymous letter.

What these tricoteuses need
Is Walcott's head:
Knit one, purl one,
Walcott's dead!

Defarge rocks her chair
While the pulleys squeak,
She knits one more name,
Click-click, click-click.


Paul Stevens has published poems and prose all over the blooming place. He teaches literature and edits The Flea and The Chimaera.
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