D(r)one

What was done was done
in our names; we ourselves

would never have done
what was done to anyone.

We wanted to be good,
polite, obedient, fun,

wanted only not to ever
ask What have we done?

And yet, in our names,
what was done was done.

Copyright © 2018 Richard Hoffman. This poem originally appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Summer 2018. Used with permission of the author.