The Sex Life of Fire

We walk into the starless night.

The ground beneath our feet is wet

with babies’ blood, the sticky mud

of once warm life tossed out, discarded

in this restless resting place

where little souls are laid in layers

of the lifeless dirt, found guilty

of desiring to be born, to breathe the air

of morning, afternoon and night, feel

the sun’s befriending warmth, be held

by ones who were supposed to be

waiting, who must be waiting

for them.

They too had love to give for they

were someone, not nothing, not no one,

no matter all the worthless words that can

be said, though they themselves never

had a chance to speak. Somewhere

before this life, unspoken sentences

of tenderness were formed and then

cut off before they could be said, cut off

in ceremonies of lifeless latex hands

and disembodied masks that float

in blind bright auras of white rooms

with antiseptic smells, while mother

lay there waiting to be

done with them.

The love that was their right, fetal

expectations formed from instinct

in the womb or long before, was cut

away with knives and suction tubes,

cut out by deadly rays from strangers’

eyes, pierced by sterile unclean hands

and death addicted minds, all professional —

and just like mom, in a hurry to be done

with them, get on with something

more important.

How much are a couple lungs, a heart

and brain worth anyway — five hundred

bucks, more or less, though often lives

are nullified for free, so anxious

the community of the living to abolish

them, to lock them out of consciousness

forever — flush them down a sewer pipe

and float them out into the cold dark

trenches of the sea. They must be

dissolved, erased from memory,

you see, and if mother feels regret

or pangs of guilt there’s always

counseling to heal

and medication

to forget.


~ Roderick Falconer