...Trial

Confess
and you could be blessed with repentance
before you burn.
Embrace
the guilt we tattoo into you
with barbs of steel.
But persist
in protestations of your innocence
and we will torture our truth from your hide
before we let you die.

And Now
Admit what you dare not deny
because this process is what it is.

Show us where you've hidden your munitions
and we will pursue you,
righteous that we knew it,
might even remember
to rebuild when we are through.

But refuse and you confirm our suspicions
by your defiant non-compliance.

Either way, we have it our way.

But we will not like it if you deprive us
of our reasons for destroying you.
All those citizens whose human rights
you have been violating,
we will bomb them into tomorrow
in the name of kindness.

Maureen Tolman Flannery