the domesticates

[constantine]

listen,
you can hear the chains clank
even before you wear them,
the tears hide within your eyes
behind lids, salt-laden
it is all you possess

there was a time
before the clock hands turned
before the wheel and wagon
the feedbag and the trough
when life was measured in seasons
when you followed the grasses
and ran the vast expanse
to the end of your days

in the world of the makers
you learned the whip's tongue
the outrage of spur and bit
turning the millstone, plowing the field
night and day, transmuted
into toil and fatigue,
for what?
who chooses to be a slave?
feet iron-clad, nailed
upon the hooves, saddled
with the sins of your masters,
and branded with hot wounds -
the stigmata, you wear so well
as if you were born to it