Flowers & Bullets
Of course: Bullets don't like people
who love flowers.
They're jealous ladies, bullets,
short on kindness.
Allison Krause, nineteen years old,
you're dead,
for loving flowers.
When, thin and open as the pulse of conscience,
you put a flower in a rifle's mouth
and said
"Flowers are better than bullets,"
that
was pure hope speaking,
Give no flowers to a state
that outlaws truth;
such states reciprocate
with cynical, cruel gifts,
and your gift Allison Krause,
was the bullet
that blasted the flower.
--Yevgeny Yevtushenko
