Some parts of me desire nothing more
than being in your presence all the time;
and when they're not, they elbow to the fore
and loudly shout your absence is a crime
and will not rest until they find out who
has perpetrated this abysmal deed.
"To let the criminal get away won't do.
A lynching, nothing less, is what we need!"
With torches lit, they scour the lonely night
hoping to flush the villain from his lair
and end his evil doings then and there.
The rest of me writes poems by candlelight
in full and awful knowledge of who's to blame -
then suddenly cries out in grief and shame.
Kawasaki
October 29, 1998