Vigilantes
       

You read about them, perfect arbiters
of justice, seeing beyond us
into the depths of evil, cutting it out.
You want a ten-foot tall man or woman
to look into hearts, see what is there.
But they can't be human, because
they might make mistakes. And then
there are always the grey fields, where evil
is not bad enough to smite, but it is there,
corroding. And do they think about
the source of evil, those avengers,
over generations? Or is it just
the black spot, to be cauterized
so the good, even the tepidly good,
can breathe? Who are the good
anyway? Why is ordinary justice
such a lumbering, bumbling machine?
And we still want the avengers we find in books.
And now it is 4 a.m., past the point
of no return on sleep. Thrones
and dominions, principalities and powers.
The infinite pounding of God
on the stone of my heart.

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Copyright © 2022 Janet Lacey McCann All rights reserved
from Life List
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