You’re no longer “he” or “she”
but “it,” neutered by a shoulder tap.
Good friends see you and run away, laughing,
and you stand in the middle of the yard,
alone with the contagion of your fingertips.
Perhaps you are the goat upon whose head
the guilt of a whole culture is amassed.
Or this is your moment to conclude
that every man is an island.
You are cast out of the tribe, left to wander
the steppes, recounting your innocence
to legions of flies and worms.
Your only hope of redemption
is to doom another to the same fate.
And the dusk is full of the children’s shrieks and cries
as they dart from place to place
like trout startled by a human shadow.