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Thursday, February 18, 2016

SCALY QUESTION

by Marcus Bales


Cartoon by Matt Bors via Daily Kos, Feb. 17, 2016

Scalia's gone ahead;
I'm bearing up dry-eyed.
I didn't wish him dead,
but I'm not sad he died.

At every human turn
within the legal fray
he mocked humane concern
and stood athwart the way.

He even said don't spend
on innocents' defense:
procedure's proper end
is killing innocents.

A creature of the right
he's now the devil's minion --
and say, who's going to write
Thomas's next opinion?


Not much is known about Marcus Bales, except that he lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and his poems have not been published in The New Yorker or Poetry.