A Hater Learns About Love Poem by Leo Yankevich

After a long night of interrogation,
followed by a thirty-minute trial,
there was no doubt about it: I was guilty.

So with my teeth tucked in my bleeding mouth,
and with my jaw now wired tightly shut,
a guard named Peter met me at the gate.

Looking different than I had imagined,
he smiled and kicked me point blank in the balls,
then led me like a drunkard down the stairs.

The long dark corridor seemed like a tunnel,
one with no light to mitigate the end,
only a special cell the saint made clear

was for the good, the freedom of us all.