Hemlock

Written by Cian Thomas Ennis

At what point does torture come to pass?

And she may rest on her pillow of grass?

With dock leaves cloaked over her ribboned back 

Dressing her wounds from the nettled track

At what time does the jailer grant the key?

For her right of return to her Wounded Knee?

Where doors stay open for imperial schemes 

But rooftops cave upon university dreams 

The only route to escape histories mire 

Is to extinguish the hearth of colonial fire 

Poison the weed at it’s very root

Strangling the snake, but saving the fruit

Gluttonous generals gulp down the reddest of wines

She tainted with the hemlock, that is Palestine.