Coincidentia Oppositorum Poem by Jack Galmitz

I.

I was the executioner.
I placed my head on the block of wood.
I asked myself if I wanted to say anything
before the sentence was carried out.
I said no.
The rest went dark.

II.

I was in the crowd. I came to watch.
There was great excitement all about.
Everyone was anxious to see the head lopped off
and fall into the waiting basket.
You do not get to see such things every day.
Most days are just drudgery.

III.

I was once a priest.
Now, I am an excommunicant.
I watched with disgust this lurid display.
I thought of how much pain we caused each other
and ourselves. I, who had once used
cattails to renounce lasciviousness.
I saw it thrive in the crowd today
at this spectacle.

IV.

I was the wife of the condemned.
It was my duty to come.
He was not a bad man.
He seldom drank and only beat me now and then.
He provided food for the table
and a roof over my head.
I said my prayers at the end.

V.

And I was the sun
and could not turn away
from the square and all
that transpired there.
I lit the scaffold and the chopping block
and the rumps of the horses
and the sweaty faces of the people.
I was witness to it all,
even to events in the darkest corners.

VI.

I never left the house, so the sun could not see me.
Even indoors, I wore a veil to cover myself.
No one was allowed to come near me.
I was shunned as someone unholy.
I was the executioner's wife and I knew
what I was getting into when I married him.
I spit when I think of the towns people-
hypocrites, all of them.