Spring 1986 · Vol. 15 No. 1 · p. 31
The Temperature of Cruelty
We think of the beaten baby
dead against the darkening stain
on the bed, soldiers pulling out
fingernails, the prisoner dangling
for days. But also the years
of bitterness in a family, the cold
turning of the shoulder, the look
that erases you. What is
the temperature of cruelty?
Fire? Boiling oil? Or the great
weight of ice, gravel shearing
rock in a slow grind. Or
that April frost, so lacy
and beautiful, whispering
and biting the orchard to death
in one slow night, when all
the blossoms blacken, and all
that was possible withers
and shatters in the wind.
