summer of 1669,
best buys, (not the store)
beads, ivory, slaves and pepper,

hell hold, shackles
the icon, iron restraints
holding denial of liberty,

dehumanize your
victims and you don't
have to feel for them,

price of life
forty pounds of
beads, throw in pewterware,
toss away integrity for a copper
cauldron to boil up two meals a day
that won't matter anyway because you
can't stomach the guilt, beans and yams
that won't digest...fall of 2011,

fall of 2011,
new world electronics,
ethics and the indigo in command
of what feeds her spirit and maintains
a silver reputation, unbound wrists and
aged whiskey she won't sell out for anything,
dignity is priceless, she runs with the wolves in
a pack of survivors, not thieves,

truth buys
conscience
some more time,
it's just a matter of
loyalty that somehow
managed to be deleted
from yesterday's ethics.

Copyright Ms. Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist