The Rosenberg Case

2004 SLAM

The Rosenberg Case

Take a hunk of history and dissect it
Like frog cadavers, lying open on the plate.
Peel back the chambers of the hearts.
Lay them open to questions and wonderings.
But do not think the unbeating hearts
Will show the nature of the frogs.
They can croak neither lies nor truth anymore.
Pale as unstirred oatmeal, they lie dead, dead, dead.

A man and a woman believed unsoundly.
What was the drama that put them there?
She was once a little girl who sat in laps,
Who twisted her long curls and played with dolls.
He was just a boy whose fingers were cracked
For wrong answers and unfinished work.
They played; they grew; they saw what they saw.
Where are their stories now? I want to hear.

What truth does an examination table show
When all the science eyes are peering down?
But tear back the skin and ready the scapel.
Slice the layers of documents and lies.
Raise the microscope to a higher power.
Lift away the thin layers and search.
Somewhere in all that death is the frog.
Probe his back legs and see if they move.

They had beliefs, that man and that woman.
Did they cash them in or believe onto death?
The history of facts revolves around data,
But where is the blood all dried into dust?
Why tell me a story of hearts that cannot beat,
Silenced by history, by courts, and by us.
Where is the voice of the mother, the child?
Why did they do it, I wonder and ask.

Once there lived a man and a woman,
With children yet, and they loved, I think.
Yet they sent bomb designs to the Russians.
Why, I keep asking. What made them so choose?
But all I can see is their unbeating hearts,
Which never can show the nature of frogs.
Not when they lie with their legs stretched out
As pale as old oatmeal, so dead, dead, dead.