Vesuvian Vengeance
Even vengeance has a startling beauty
To ancients and their atavistic heirs
Around the Middle Sea who love duty
To family honor. They connive their snares
Into murder and conceive they are
Achieving glistening sweetness in the blood.
Their lips are open as they carve a scar
Inside the other family’s heart with thud
Of blade or bullet or of bomb. The neck
Looks noble with its Adam’s apple glow
And shadow, glorying in the wreck
Of throat or chest or in the guts below.
..A furied hatred blasts assassins’ air
….Across their heads and beautifies their hair.