I Will Not Beat You Down

I will not beat you down
I will not run you through
For your drumbeat of indignities
Sustains me with commonplace comforts

I hedge my bets
And run for King,
The dying art of hubris,
Jonesing for a lesser role,
Petitioning surplus humiliations.
Praise wounds from which all stressing weeps

Crown me with your donkey’s yoke
And I will burnish it like chestnuts
Unattended for three seasons
Tumbling in pocket flannel
Never knowing light or worth
Until one day
Spill with sundry coins
Across the clattering counter
Radiant in its lustre

Like lambs raised by wolves
Your pity knows no greater love
That I should be grateful.

I will not beat you down
I will not run you through
Though you have earned
A hero’s death, unbidden, unprepared

For this grand interruption
I wonder how you will take it
That it will take you
And I a breath more than yours

What good will I make of that intake
To honour your catalog
Of accidental kindness
That you should be
Commended to whomever
In the bleak forecourt:

There stands my friend
For whom I never had to take a bullet.