Hunger Striking

She followed the Mahatma’s model,
Refusing sustenance as a form of protest.
Her corrupt jailors could keep their unsquare meals;
The bread of tyranny was anathema to her.
Contemptuous of such conviction, the guards promised
That innate need would inevitably break her spirit.
Still she ignored her pangs, stayed true to her masochistic cause–
Even after her oppressors abruptly changed course,
Appearing neither empty-handed nor with tempting tray.
An isolate, she lay prostrate in her cell, weak but willful,
Until finally she succumbed to martyrdom.
She came crawling back but a few hours later,
The personification of irony, with no notion of nonviolence.
Nothing more now than a ravenous cadaver, encaged,
Her ultimate political statement undercut by guttural moan.