Plague
        A plague a both your houses.
                        Mercurio

We lay our scene in fair Verona, bur could
as easily in Tel Aviv, Falluja,
Beirut, a half dozen blighted towns
in what was called once the fertile crescent.
No star-crossed lovers at the moment seem
available to bring a stop to the blooddraped
corpses, twisted re-bar, broken stone
of the latest indiscriminate outbreak
of ancient grudges lovingly bestirred.
Let's skip the early scenes and go straight
to the street, the lads parading their wit
before one another, looking for an opening.
And of course finding it. And one of them,
the one with the mercurial tongue,
inviting it, taunting, baiting his catch,
but catching himself. Scratched, he says. Not so deep
as a roadside bomb crater, nor so wide
as a mass grave, but enough. Enough to call
the missiles in, the helicopter gunships,
enough to wake the sleeping demagogues,
to twist and misinform the Romeos
and Juliets, enough to send in, hushed
and expectant, the beautiful suicides.

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Copyright © 2018 Roger Mitchell All rights reserved
from Reason's Dream
Dos Madres Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission