Wearing white robes and blindfolded, Faisal was beheaded with a single sweep of a gold-handled sword.
— Wikipedia
One sweep of a gold-handled sword
was all it took
For those assembled to shout words
from an old book.
In still another time, a man
held the coats, while
The faithful gathered stones, or ran
for broken tiles.
I wasn’t there, I had stepped out,
moments before,
Inured to those initial shouts
and the crowd’s roar.