A Year in Coups (II)

Epigrammata 81

The lesson: the only wrong way to declare marital law is to refuse to double down.

Those who do not live beside
The real threat of homicide
Have a politics with space
For theories of redeeming grace
Those who wish to claim a crime
By the ruler, make it time
For him to roll the dice of fate
Even if the hour's too late --
To strike at him's to strike the State.