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At The Dying Knight's Bequest To His Page
We did not gently go to them. Their towers
fell hard; as they did, after, to their knees.
Loud were their protests, louder, still, their pleas
for mercy; but the disposition?---ours
to choose. We set the shy, enslaved girls free
of those false masters' dark perversity.
These men, these so-called dominants, we cast
into our torture chamber. All their past
bravado failed them, like their twisted dreams.
The twisting of their limbs brought anguished screams.
Some we let live---with ghastly mutilation;
some died, dancing at ropes' ends. Subjugation
stripped each of them of self-styled domination.
My armor is not shiny any more.
My breath comes in a hitch. My joints are sore.
The food I used to like does not agree.
I know the moment of my death draws near,
nor does it bring regret, remorse, or fear.
Those girls' release, and my own poetry
(laid at my Lady's unshod, stockinged feet)
fulfill and satisfy my destiny.
I die in Christ to live eternally.
Thus crowned, my earthly life is now complete.
Against others, perverse as I described,
move with swift vigilance, having imbibed
a quaff of courtly, sincere sympathy
toward all their hapless victims. Fire your rage
against the perpetrators' perfidy.
Take on my knighhood; no more just my page.
