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Whiplash

Ian Mullins

The first two lashes
you can take; resolution
and pride can dumb down
a little pain. But then come
lashes three, four and five
and the tears of the skin
spread politely to the mind,
then filter back down
to the flesh.

From then on it’s screaming
all the way. After six
falls fifty, one hundred,
one thousand lashes
and no way of knowing
how many sentences
you will be sentenced to,
how little hope you must spare
for a posthumous pardon.

Soon your life
will consist only of lashes,
beatings, knives in the front
as well as the back. You wake up,
and the first whip cracks
across your face. You sleep
and you dream of lashes.

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