Limits of Honor

Regulus, what were your thoughts

as you stood in that narrow box,

the points of a thousand nails

pricking your skin when you relaxed

your stance? You, who lived

with ultimate civility, did your spirit

weaken? Did you second guess

your honor in that last hour as

your life flashed across the celluloid

of your sleep-deprived eyes?

Augustine leaves you to be a foil

in his debate. But you were a lost pilgrim

who may never have known

what the gods could not tell you.
You leave us to wonder 
whether the questions of a lost soul
could be broached by Transcendence.