Shakespeare on Campuses of Scarves

Let's workshop this poem about the difficulty of proving one's innocence in a system that is quick to judge and slow to listen (especially to those not from one of the good "protected classes")

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Shakespeare on Campuses of Scarves 

To attest, even with the full hoopla of humility
vital for men of his optics, that he was quoting— 
not lobbing—the “F-trauma,” and that the poet
meant just a bundle of sticks, would do nothing
in a malleus provocatorum court convened (“sadly
on stolen lands”) to decide his professorial fate.

Think of yesterday’s witch trials. In response
to the teary man who swears his accused wife
was not frolicking at some midnight sabbath
but sleeping in his bed, the bishop would smile:
“My son, Satan’s infinite powers of deception
far exceeds your finite powers of perception!”

The provost, flanked by scowling DEI officers 
and Title IX coordinators, would say in a smile:
“Eurocentric-rationalizations—especially given
the hetero whiteness of you and the poet alike—  
are oppressive. LGBTQIA2S+ hate is pervasive.
It squirms even into well-intentioned hearts.”

Under the Argos of a bureaucracy huge enough
that it must soon feed upon itself, even its MUPs
(its marginalized, unproblematic, and protected) 
who lack all visible “devil marks”—the question
seemed easy. Would he implicate others, like all
the rest, in his hysteria-legitimizing apology?

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* “Malleus Provocatorum” is a phrase that translates to “hammer of troublemakers / triggerers / provocateurs.” It is a reference to the medieval “Malleus Maleficarum” or “Hammer of Witches”: a disgusting treatise on methods for spotting witches and torturing them until they confess and name others who suckle upon the teats of Satan.

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