We Don’t Shoot Our Wounded

Anger

molten as the Earth’s core

and just as deep.

Cooled

by a remark

made by a woman I had just met.

Betrayed too

she was angry enough

she said

“to want to smack them.”

But

sighing

she said

“We don’t shoot our wounded.”

And just like that

I was reminded of the unacknowledged agony

behind the deceit

and was filled

with the compassion

of the Buddha.

(Though somewhere

an ember still smolders.)