This Line

This line wasn’t drawn yesterday or today

This line goes way back

Straight through my heart

This line is as red as the blood that

Stained Jackie’s tailored suit

In the shadow of the grassy knoll

This line hangs as heavy

As the rope that bore such

Strange and bitter fruit

This line is the scar on Gabby Giffords’ scalp

This line is the tear falling

Down a mother’s cheek

This line is hot with rage and fury

This line was uttered in Ford’s Theatre

As theatrically as ever

This line is the sting of the whip

This line is the manacle that holds you in place

This line is drawn tight

Tight as a bow whose arrow

Will take flight

On a straight line to death

This line underscores the tally

Of the lost

This line spits hot lead

Randomly

In chaos

This line kills

This line is not a drawing

It’s a pathway to oblivion

And everlasting dark

David Trudel  ©  2012

This is a response to this great poem by Susan Daniels:

http://susandanielseden.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/that-line/

That line

if there is
a line between free speech
& treason

between change
& revolution

between assembly
& rioting

it is fine
it is dark
& it is drawn

in blood

the problem is
it takes death

to tell the difference