Posted by jilly on February 15, 1999 at 18:21:45:
Pluck the fetus from the sewer pipe,
let it grow in shadows for a month or two,
then lay it down between the double stripes.
Tell every ant to go on with its feast-
I'd do it myself, were it me.
Two more children died today, found sorted
by limbs and prints in the back of a bus.
Is there anything more fragrant, more sordid
as the fetid, grape perfume
of those not quite fermented wounds?
Shall we list ourselves among the tragedies,
clip our nails to the quick and be done with it?
There must be other ways. The plague of fleas
this summer did not scratch us as we'd hoped, and I've
been waiting for a sign to assure me I'm at least alive-
but this is not about dying, but being dead,
and oh, you taught me well. My friend,
how tender you seem, your head
curled into the geometry of a petaless rose-
thanking God that no one else knows.