Reticence
(Homage to Zbigniew Herbert)

Steven Kaminski

Since the will of the people
ordained the ends but left him here
To set the ordered scene,
He thought a pistol should be tugged
Reluctantly
From its holstered home.
Like a rotten tooth,
He congratulated himself on the thought,
Prised out between thumb and finger.

The commissar could praise himself
As he pulled his boot away
From the remiss stubborn jaw
Of the framed
Gap-toothed man,

His hands held by foreign rope,
Kneed in the back and belly down
Like a shot on his native land,
No secret spat out but unable to stop
His own blood making sepia mud,
Who still insolently flecks
Enamel worthy of a statue into the red.