If it had happened all at once
like a curtain falling swiftly
and blotting out the light,

if they had severed our choices
with the flash of a blade
both sudden and bright,

or leveled our lives
with some artillery shell's
whistling explosive flight,

if they had slapped blinkers
on our eyes, narrowing our vision
to all they claimed was right,

we would have raised an alarm,
cried out in protest and
summoned the will to fight.

Yet each turn of the screw
that tightened the bonds on
our lives was ever so slight,

we barely noticed the loss
of our freedoms and the
limits on our sight.

Now we wait in the shadows
of a thickening dusk where
all cats are black or white,

and a bare reflection of
the sun's last rays
heralds a fascist night.