A Humbled Dostoyevsky.

The firing squad was halted
and the white hood torn from his head
before the sentence could be carried out--
his pardon came just in time.
The young anarchist was spared
by the grace of providence.
He grew and learned and wrote of life
and death
more convincingly afterwards.

He left his first wife
or maybe she died
or maybe it's the same damn thing
and replaced her with a girl
a third of his age
who cooked and cleaned and trimmed his beard
and fulfilled his selfish libido until he slept
and then woke him from his nightmares
about the lack of a God or a Father
that he wanted
so hard to believe in
and when that wasn't enough
and he had to get it out
but was too weak and blind to write it
she transcribed his words for him
though that book was never completed.

And somewhere in Russia
he's buried now
and has been for well over a century
his works translated in at least twelve languages
though there's only one that matters
to us foolish disciples who claim to know him best:

To love and to be loved.