A condemned man saw his reflection
in the sunlit flash from a Chinese sword.
This is how the guilty were executed.
This is how the innocent were executed.
Then a gunshot was the last
sound a prisoner heard, just before the family
had chance to claim his body for the price
of the bullet used, which was the same
for the guilty as for the innocent.
Now the government speaks of human rights
as a bus arrives at even the poorest village
whose inhabitants would envy the wash basin
and comfortable seats beside the stretcher
for guards and witnesses
to the injection’s administration
behind the blacked-out windows.
More humane for the guilty,
officials say, than having to ask
the prisoner to kindly hold
his mouth open to allow the bullet
to pass through
without deforming the face.
More humane for the innocent.
The country has become more civil say
its leaders who are quick
to indicate that people spit
less often than they used to. During the Olympic Games
executions will happen three, four hundred times.
Justice is swift for the guilty, swifter
for the innocent. The fine for spitting
translates into two dollars and forty-one cents.
David Chorlton has two new chapbooks posted online, The Dreaming House and Dry Heat. Both draw on life in Arizona.
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