The Pardon
by Ellen Wehle
Tyburn Gallows, 1447
Slavish to the letter of the law or perhaps just plain
Malefic, the hangman refuses to return his due
And the gallowbirds—babe-naked, marked for
Quartering from Adam’s apple to navel—scarcely
Dare meet each other’s eye as the messenger
Spurs his nag back to town. Should they kick
Up a fuss? Demand their earthly goods, wood-soled
Shoes and shirts, the woolen hose holding each
Wearer’s shape like a ghost? Thwarted, the mob
Rumbles, a faint thunder on the horizon…one felon
Takes his cue and strides off, rubbing at the roadmap
Inked upon his chest with an idle thumb. One sits
Poleaxed at the platform’s edge; the Wheel has spun
Too fast to catch his breath. Laughing madly, two leap
Down to join their drunken friends while the last
Looks blinking around him, shaken awake to this
Shadow-dream—the rain-dark fields, glinting leaves,
Kingfisher and reeds of a high summer day—then
Stiffly, like an old man, begins his journey back.
Ellen Wehle‘s poems have appeared in Canada, Europe, the U.S. and Australia. Her first collection of poems is called The Ocean Liner’s Wake (Shearsman, 2009). Wehle writes poetry book reviews, “a labor of love,” she says, “to help bring exciting new poets to a larger audience.”