Pete Lee on the Other Side of the
NEVER FORGET
With two steel prongs, three and
a half inches apart -- long, sharp,
like those of a fork you'd
use to feed a whole chicken
to a croc, or maybe roast
a pair of foot-long hot dogs --
it shone behind glass in the
"Museum of Applied Art"
in Belgrade in the early 1990s,
had been employed by the Croats
hundreds of years ago to gouge
out two Serb eyeballs at a time --
little different than the repeated
name of a gunned-down brother
when Crips are going for Blood
(or vice versa) -- an old instrument
with a new use: to justify
the rape, torture, starvation
and/or murder of more than one
million Muslims in Christ's name.
How far does our memory reach?
Does it stretch beyond tall towers,
or end at the points
of two steel prongs?
© Copyright Pete Lee 2006