IRON SHOES

Taste harm:
its bitter dust
the drug of centuries
sold in cruelty
cut with silence

the knife
of need
at the child's throat
the fire kicked
to garnet shards
inside the heart,

and grief! the secret
buried
in a clay pot
beneath a ruined city-

these are
the horses
which trample hope,
these are
the hidden machines,

the iron shoes
of dread.