Retribution

                                                                                    “A kangaroo in Canada escaped, while

                                                                                    being transferred between zoos, hopped

                                                                                    down a highway, evaded authorities

                                                                                    for four days, and then punched an officer

                                                                                    in the face.”

                                                                                    Harper’s Weekly

I would venture nearly everyone harbors some affront.

An indignity that sides us instantly with the beleaguered—

with the downtrodden, horses old and gaunt, lone woman on the board.

Because that personal scenario of come-uppance is serious business.

It lives deep in the belly’s pocket with its own dedicated blood vessels

to feed a dream of payback.

A fantasy of reckoning, a tipping point when wrongs

and insults self-correct. So gratifying. Even pseudo justice is welcome,

spelling out like a slot machine: Look! You’ve finally    

WON  WON  WON

We’d like to think it was well-deserved, hard won.

Not just a matter of odds.

We look past how our win will lose in the end,

how the next roll will likely cancel today’s luck.

The offender will probably never pay,

never feel remorse, learn nothing.

Because that personal scenario of come-uppance is serious business—

even if it comes off as farce,

like when slapstick pantomimes revenge. 

After our millisecond of retribution,

we tuck our grievance back into our belly’s pocket,

call it a win.

---

Andrea Fry has published two collections of poetry, The Bottle Diggers, in 2017 (Turning Point Press) and Poisons & Antidotes (Deerbrook Editions) in 2021. Her poems have appeared or will appear in Alaska Quarterly Review, Annals of Internal Medicine, Barrow Street, Cimarron Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, The Sun and Women’s Review of Books among others. She is a newly retired oncology nurse practitioner and lives with her husband and two cats in Brookline, Massachusetts.