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

Some poor woman, older, robust, sexless to me,
sits, cross angled, on one half closed.

The seat becomes a vice;
her fingers, trapped like rape, crushed.

Her shouts scorch, a boiling crescendo
of pain. People run. Not me.

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

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

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