The Perverse Silver

Examined closely, you will find
No saintlier group of people

Compared to every other group
Composed of grace and wickedness,

Kindness and slashing violence.
There’s a bit of sorrow to that,

Given whole classes victimized
And stereotyped as lesser,

Frailer, more savage, more childlike—
Female, indigenous, dark-skinned,

Poor, disabled—lent a perverse
Silver lining limning the worst

Architectures of dominant
Cruelties—possibilities

For morally innocent groups.
Extremes of powerlessness force

Submission, and submissiveness
Looks awfully like innocence,

As if the powerless victims
Never could be as relentless,

As intentionally vicious
As those wielding the sword of power.

But power’s a steel sweep slicing
Along oceans, not the oceans,

Not inherent in the water,
Nor in blood, although all water

And all blood may be equally
Cut and shaped by that passing wave.

When cruelty seems localized,
One can dream it may be contained,

That, if some are born to conquest,
Some carry innate gentleness,

But even tidal pools can rise
To gather in the tsunami,

And there’s no such beast as people
Incapable of signing steel.