I have a hole in my heart


where my conscience should be.


Severed are the nerves


connecting me with humanity;


still my tongue, my Samson eye


seared, blinded, unable to see


that once Eden on earth,


my cradle home, my country


has been made derelict, boughless


but for a solitary Tree -


the Tree of Forbidden Knowledge,


the Forbidden knowledge of a technology


that like Promethean fire


should have benefited mortals like me,


not isolated me from Mankind.


I may have arrested my foe, but locking


his handcuffs to my nuclear button,


shackled my own wrist to his destiny.


Whichever one of us should strike first,


will strike both. MAD or Double Indemnity?


Let not holes in the heart


become holes in the ground,


Eden-sized graves for the Adams and Eves


in you and in me.


[Published in DAWN Magazine, 9 June 2003, and reprinted in WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE & OTHER WRITINGS (2006).]