Seeming
to stop short
of burning through,

just a little less
than engulfed,
the palace

is not falling into
a heap of embers,
rather is charred

and fragile, but remains
upright for now,
the shape of authority

preserved even as
the greasy smoke
from the masters’ pyre

covers our countryside
and poisons us, our families,
our livestock chokes

on it, but their house
stands there, shadow
of its frame long over

the land, and no one
will knock it down
no matter how rickety

it becomes, we’ll wait
for it to fall as its absence
frightens us, when it goes

on its own we’ll deal then,
but no one wants
to have the cause of that emptiness

on their shoulders alone:
let it fall, leave the bones in the ashes
where they burned themselves,

we will die of their poison
before we ever let it be known
that we will not miss their tyranny.