The Death Penalty

It's all the news can say today, he's bound
to death by injection, supine on the gurney,
wondering things people wonder when they
are punished for having wrecked a life
or taken it, this niece of his he used like a toy,
murdering her soul one expert said, the damage
too big to calculate, too big for him to pay
in ways other than by dying, the message
going out to all predators, sick eyes on children
sick lips pursing over bodies not yet grown,
sick minds that cogitate in dreams of stealing
the innocence and leaving empty sores of pain
where bright eyes should be, where laughter
should bubble up like endless fountains-
so I think of you, blessed uncle, of you
the king I held up high on mantles where
the memories could not stain you, as memories
are children who grow one day to stand
on tippytoes with their Howdy Doody fingers
and touch the mantle, tip it down with power
from some hero buried in them until the mantle
decides to give so there you are, all the beast
of you, so eligible for death on a gurney,
and when I ask who will press the buttons,
unleash the poison through the tubes into
your veins while your eyes roll backward
in your head, I know it cannot be me,
I cannot kill the body that has known me,
I cannot be bound even more to its soul,
its eyes rolling back, showing eyes
that loved me even through the envy.