dearest pandora,


		guileless, guiltless pandora, you are still flawless, faultless,

		your reaching hands & restless fingers are blameless,

		for they were sculpted by the chisels of fate & the whims of gods


		the clay pithos would never have stayed closed

		for far before our first breaths, the stars ordained

		the entanglement of our fates with melancholy & misery


		to see & blame the scapegoat, the face & not the cause

		is in our innate makeup. do not believe the masses,

		for you are inculpable as a flittering butterfly in a typhoon


		do not condemn your palms for their inwritten lines,

		you did not carve them

		keep your conviction & credence in curiosity


		do not place upon your curving shoulders

		the crushing weight of the unconquerable seven

		their casualties are not your burden to bear