dennis brutus

Mario Benedetti

They Hanged Him, I Said Dismissively

They hanged him, I said dismissively
having no other way to say he died
or that he was a dear friend
or that work wove us most intimately
in common tasks, ambitions, desires.
Now he is dead: I dare not think
of the anguish that drove him to where he was
or the apin at their hands he must have faced
or how much he was racked by my distress:
now, it is still easiest to say, they hanged him
dismissively