The buzz-saw whine of righteous anger rose
murderously in his throat throughout the night,
long after she had watched her mother close
the door to, and the honeyed wedge of light
was eaten by the dark, his voice whirred on,
and in that darker dark in which she lay
she felt his jaws rasp on the naked bone
of time and place and what she'd need to say
and how, if he were judge, by Christ, he'd cut...
she knew that glare of blindness came down
upon him like a weather-wall and shut
him off from pity -- hunched inside her gown
she shrank from what the morning held, the fresh assault
of reason that his manic shame would make,
the steady rape wished on her for her fault
in being the unlucky one to take
the fancy of another man who'd said:
'OK, this one will do...' and swung the wheel.
Somebody sobbed. Grief mimed out in her head
the ritual she did not dare to feel.
Bones, she was dice-bones, shaken, rolled on black,
wishing her frenzied suitors might re-pass,
and at this stage be merciful and take her back,
and leave her, shuddering, blank-faced, on the grass.

~ Bruce Dawe
"Condolences of the Season"

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