April 12, 2022Shevchenko, Shot in the Head
When soldiers shot Shevchenko in the head
you’d like to think they meant something by it.
You’d like to ask: what poem had they read
that moved them so? You’d like to know why it
inspired this (you suppose) symbolic act
of violence. If, to them, this man meant more
than all the other things that they’d attacked
then you’d have something to forgive them for.
You hate to think they didn’t even mean
to do it, that his broken bust got caught
in crossfire, one more face hit sight unseen.
Your own bowed, breaking head can’t bear the thought
the soldiers might’ve shot him just for fun,
the same as they might’ve shot anyone.
from Poets Respond