In a Cage

In a cage
In a cage
You put me in a cage

not empty-handed: a foil blanket
a dirty diaper
still
You put me in a cage

Do you think I won’t remember?
Do you think that I’ll forget?
Do you think that I won’t grieve the day
You took Mama and Papa away?

In a cage
In a cage
You put me in a cage

You play your big important games
and move me as a pawn
You see me as valuable leverage
but limited and expendable

But pawns grow up
to be Bishops, Knights and Rooks
One of us a King
and one of us a Queen

Do you think we’ll play
a different game that the one
that you are teaching us?

Do you think that you’ll escape
the wrath which you have sown?

In a cage
In a cage
You put me in a cage

Do you think that the hearts you’ve hardened
when you ignore our voice
are the only hearts that beat
within your own cage?

When yours is pounding fast with fear
inside your own ribcage,
When it is time to pay the piper
And mine is hard as stone
Remember, when you ask for mercy,
From you I never learned that word.

1/16/20 S. B. Eulberg