Clan Hate Culture

The corrosive venom of hatred
worms its way into a
hardened heart and destroys
the soul, consuming empathy
and compassion, tolerance and
forgiveness in equal measure
in its vitriolic passage within
the viscera by its pathological 
intensity. Within that tight little
rural town both families had their
ardent sympathizers and the
incident, though a half-century old
festered. Until the boy who was
two when his sister at nine
perished in an accident, at fifty-two
took a firearm to finally visit
the son and grandson of the 
dead man who drove his truck
fifty years ago through a hidden
intersection. Now, the daughter 
of the grandson professes to a
deep and abiding loathing of the
man sentenced to life in prison
that consumes her inner core 
to a fierce fire of execration
that will never subside until she
too has exacted her due vengeance.