When button-pushers push, if we fail to jump and cow’r

pied pipers collect – bones, fingers, first and second borns.

Fetal in a bed, Thich Naht Hahn played soft over smacks.

Weather’d belt half-round leather’d hand for failing to talk back.

Prayed peace but redeemed tonic immobility,

silent weeping, children playing dead, tossing turning.

When with hateful spite, whatever the sick sadist strikes,

there will be bruised thighs, broken-skinned bodies, clipped tongues.

Little children who dreamt frozen screams, quiet as kept,

stirred by wolves in sheepskin, wake full-adult, bellowing.