The Queen Returns

What were those years like

would she know,

those track-ripping times

of anger and contestation

the affirmation of history by disavowal

the claim for a plot

by planting of mine

the attempted liberation of a people

by the conferring of dismemberment?

Did she know that her roar

would be out-roared

the chug-chugging out-gunned

in multi-barrel ways

that black smoke turned blacker still?

Or did she wait

in the manner of the regal

for a time that had to come

when magazines emptied

could no longer be re-filled

in the inevitable emergency

of life after death after death after death?