The Wounded Serpent

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

He stands, the sharp hem of his suit
clean as a surgeon’s blade—
pressed against the rot beneath,
where the wounds gape, law-wrought,
as if the wisdom of verdicts could
become teeth, gnawing flesh from bone.

Each decree a bullet lodged in sinew,
each doctrine a knife slipped cleanly
between his ribs. He should be dying.
He should be undone.

each principle a gash,

each doctrine a knife slipped cleanly

between his ribs. He should be dying.

He should be undone.

Yet he speaks—slow, measured,
like the world has not
opened its maw to swallow him whole.
He stands where he should kneel,
lips pursed against pain, words
coiling like silk around a wound,
binding it closed in ribbons of lies.

"I have always served this country,"
he says, his tongue a surgeon’s hand,
his breath a scalpel cutting the truth
to fit his will. "I have acted
in the best interest of the people."

His wrist flicks, a gesture—
practiced, precise, an artist’s stroke
on a canvas of deceit.

Behind him, his sins stretch long—
a procession of ghosts whispering
their grievances in the hush of air.
The hands he has emptied of coin,
the mouths he has emptied of speech,
the stomachs he has emptied of bread.

To him, patriotism is a throne
carved from the bones of the hungry.
To him, duty is a golden sheath
hiding the rust of his blade.

He knows the eyes that bore into him,
like torches pressed against wax.
He knows they see him unravel,
his body unraveling like thread,
yet still, he stands.

Despite the ruin of his flesh—
a body crumbling under the weight
of its own falsehoods—he smiles,
because even as blood pools
in the quiet corners of his conscience,
there will always be those
who mistake a well-polished lie
for the gleam of righteousness.