Of all the blood
that was spilled
Charles Napier was absolved
in his own eyes
and so was the case, a century-and-half later
with his successors
Even otherwise
everything had remained unchanged
but for Tabasco sauce
that had replaced half-ground chilies
in government institutions
for use on women in physical remand
and improved output
that rendered it possible to sooner dispatch men
to an elegant table
where the official certificates
of their death-by-natural-causes were gathered