Sanctions

By Christopher Weddle, Centre Daily Times via AP

Workers remove the statue of former football coach 

Joe Paterno outside Beaver Stadium 

on Penn State's campus in State College, Pa.

I understand. The country's learned a lot
from those who swept
sordid
sticky
sins
under expensive rugs.
The truth comes out (or the perpetrators do)
and the company/church/football program 
gets left
with an enormous cleaning bill.
When only predators are protected
(and perhaps their families)
eventual punishments are just.
Balance must be restored
when childhoods are laid waste.
It doesn't always happen (I missed my day in court),
but retribution serves a purpose.
We-didn't-know! Or we-knew-but-didn't-do-anything!
Now-that-you-know-we-knew, we'll-do-whatever- it-takes
to-make-things-right,
no matter what it costs, no matter who has to pay
because we let It happen.

But.

Whatever else he may have been,
Paterno's still the winningest coach 
in American college football.
Change the stats,
rearrange the facts
to suit.
Tear down statues,
photoshop offenders out.
Announce the release of
bowdlerized
sanitized
recordbooks.
Lies to placate, revising history as if
it ever changes for the boys.
Real players scored real touchdowns.

Neither sin nor sanction
can change truth.


(2012) Ellen Gillette