Map to the Execution of Damiens the Regicide

Michel Foucault makes much of you, Robert,
of how, before the Paris Church, you made
your forced amende honorable, of the shirt
(he does not say if it was yours) they laid
across your broken back, and of the cart
that took you to the Place de Grève; he writes
they tore away the flesh above your heart
and burnt the hand in which you'd held the knife:

he writes all this, of all of you that hung,
of how they needed six, not four, fresh steeds
toward the end, of how the crucifix
was kissed, and that the last breath from your lungs
formed 'Pardon, Lord'—you ended almost clean—
it is historic: 'torture' means 'to twist.'