The Lottery, Revisited

The Lottery, Revisited
 
This time, I don't attend. I wait at
my window as Widow Jamison appears,
replete in bombazine. She struts to
the platform, ready to draw a name.
 
Her sons had been unlucky in the draw;
seven years she watched as each was
stoned to death, yet she shed not one tear.
But she still does her hair a certain way
for attendance at another turn of chance,
the lottery in our small New England town.
 
My daughters lie within the ground,
their bruised bodies turned to bones.
Queen of the roost, she thinks she is,
standing so proud in that deadly pulpit.
 
I've only one left to offer for the draw--
a son, while hers rot in their graves.
But that's not what angers me the most.
Had I no faith, I'd cast the first stone,
bury it deep into her pious temple.
 
My son kisses me before he leaves to join
the gathered crowd, a stone in his hand.

-Marge Simon