At My War-Crimes Trial

When the stealthy flea special forces
finally overrun my remote hide out
and drag me away, handcuffed,
to put me in the dock,
when the speck-sized prosecutor
reads the charges against me
and the bereft family members
point their hairy legs at me and moan,
I will plead, "Nolo contendere.
"Yes, I have committed flea genocide."

When the tiny flea wives with tears tell
how they sent their tiny flea husbands
out to gather blood, never to return
and the wiggling, weeping larvae
wonder why daddy had to leave,
when the mothers of murdered sons
invoke the full force of the law,
I will sit, the hollow-eyed accused,
to hear the tale of their loss.

With curling, black limbs the impassioned
prosecutor will grip the jury box rail
and regale the wide-eyed jury
with the story of that night,
how one million five hundred
thirty-nine thousand six hundred and seventy-
two innocent, hardworking fleas
were massacred, how the loved ones left
behind have no bodies to bury
because I washed them away down the drain
with the brackish run-off
of the kittens' bath.

The beady-eyed judge will shake his head
as the lawyer relates that after the slaughter
as I cleaned my bloody hands,
dozens of the slick, black
carcasses clung to my skin.
Not an eye in the courtroom will be dry
as at last, the prosecutor turns to me,
demands to know if I can defend
my heinous actions, my crimes
against flea-kind.

Silent, I will shake my head,
for what more will there be to say?
This is war.
There are no excuses.
It was my blood or theirs.