Dominion

Having held a fellow human being Backbone to bone on the long bone Of his arm; having then carried Him for a year like a football, Never fumbling once, really never— And all this before any genuine Voice was born and could go to war, Striking with yogurt as he declaims His shrill imperium of human rights— Leaves a man ill-suited to any fresh Assault from doctrines of equality. They reach him as flat paper echoes From some republic of styrofoam; a Grand opera through a teeny speaker. They cannot compete with his afternoons. They cannot compel a two-year-old Who would rather not put on his pants. Dust of a century too late for bed, They crumble in that firm embrace Of dorsal restraint preferred By big aides on the ward. “Because,” He hears himself say, “because God Bound the strong to rule the weak, As their burden and their glory—” Did he just say this? Even to Himself? It is his own throat, Not a dream or a computer—“because God bound the strong to rule the weak, You shall put on your pants.” And By hand the thing is done. Yet since No good sword lacks its back-bite edge, “Those who wish to command must first Learn to obey—” easy lesson in some Ages; most difficult in our own. The noble is a hunted man, a Jew In Berlin. He survives in a mask, Half a murderer and half a joke. Even his nuts are small and soft, and In school his daughters learn only To despise him. Who then is left To rule us? Where now the lions? Still bred, perhaps—where trained? Lord knows we tried ruling ourselves; You can see how that one worked out.