Zac Goldstein
Robespierre's Lost Children
Signs waved, slogans shouted, change the crackle
Of pulsing currents that threaten overload.
Victory: we sit now in darkness
Because you demanded eternal light for all.
"Eat the rich" and it won't be the poor that gorge
But the next in line stepping from the shadows
To take their turn at the head of this savage table
And you'll lick clean their leavings thinking you've won
Topple the ivory tower, cast out the elites
Drown trite and tired ideas in bathtubs
And watch worse ones bubble to the surface
Gates unkept grant grotesque admittances
The fire you play with burns righteous hands
Oppressed skin's still flammable, more so than most
And if this system falls to ashes and embers
Will you see your family amid the char?
Bio
Zac Goldstein holds an MFA in fiction from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. His work has appeared in The Literary Hatchet, Litbreak Magazine, The Jewish Literary Journal, storySouth, Heater, and Jersey Devil Press. A New Jersey native, he lives and teaches in North Carolina.