Wax Icon

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you..."

You see in my face the waste of skin
that if I saw like you I'd hate it too.

The words I hold so dear make
your hair itch. The road I walk
you'd spit on with fire, and slash
and burn until earth itself would beg
you to kill me. Each nook and secret
I hide from view you see before I do.
It burns like bile in your throat; your
jaw sets, teeth grind, and the meat
of your tongue tastes as sweet
as my pound of flesh would on your plate.

We live in a mirrored world, where all
these doubles talk and dress like us,
say the same platitudes, think the same
thoughts, make the same rim
shot, sweep the same garbage
from the floor. They live in that blind
spot that hides us from ourselves,
too vain to care. I smell it too; hate floats
in the air where shit does not stink.

Hold me as close as you hold your love.
I know who you hate, for I hate them too.

They say hate lives in a house of salt.
The priests come at night to scratch
from the walls, the jambs, the sills
what they use in the sacrifice to the god
of anger. At noon, hate walks in the park,
takes its children on the merry-go-round.
It has a good job, pays its bills, and goes
to church. It belongs to the Rotary Club.
I know it well, and wave to it always.

We hate what we can and cannot change.
As time works out its purpose in us,
the wax icon we shape looks like ourselves.

So hold me close, dear enemy, as close
as your love and then, then I will love you if I can.

(c) copyright 2012 Charles David Miller. All rights reserved.