Sleeping masters roused to burning homes from beds. steeping toddlers plucked from their watery deaths: ribbons, plaques and soft-soap are the ephemeral rewards paid to the slaves whose selfless acts accord a higher value to their masters, while parting gifts (bolt pistols) console the rest. the remainder. too bad the tributes paid to lives that relegate these thrones to lives spent valuing the runners-up, are known to be neither fleeting nor desirable. but nothing surprises me these days. i just sit and watch the box-cars roll by and wait. patient. unattended. a package under a terminal bench. a short fuse to scatter steady hands if i forget to remember that better lives have been lived in the margins, locked in the prisons and lost on the gallows than have ever been enshrined in palaces.