Because I Loved

poem about Ethel Rosenburg for SLAM Round 6

Hidden in paranoid arteries,
their blood runs red-
but it is mine that
oozes down a metal screen,
accused of being
a sinister shade of crimson.

I am condemned when
the nation preys for sacrifice,
my husband not enough to satiate
the righteous eagle.

Because I loved,
and believed in a foreign ideal,
they try to crush my conscience
with the dirt from graves
of fifty thousand.
Yet my pride stands tall, strapped
against the trunk of treason.
My death's desire,
as they light the fire with a switch,
is to hear them choke
on the fumes of murder.