A conference theatre, unfilled, the field;
green folding chairs, strewn open, the crop.

Some poor woman, older, robust, sexless to me,
sits, cross angled.

Her seat shifts, becomes a vice;
her fingers, trapped, raped, crushed.

Her shouts scorch, stark pain,
boiling crescendo. People rush. Not me.

I am shock still,
stunned by lust, by shame.

I can't forgive me this.
I can't.

This poem was published in the Autumn 2K2 edition of Subverse.