–

The zealots came – as always –
draped in purity, to press their claims

~ which would erase our nuances,
reduce our subtleties to slates;
as if a blank could live

~ in which the glories of creation
would shrink to conceptual art,
like angelic voices ringing
locked in a crazy head

~ on roads too thin to travel far
as life was redefined, abjured
to strip it clear of heresies

like cockroaches.