when I see all I've never been

stern man in white coat tells me I have been coddling my young

that my porcelain children have turned rotten and sickly under my care

they are corrupt he informs me they are agents who would seek to

pollute life’s stream he says & so my pearls are expelled from me as

the body rejects the body as we release what is no longer ours to keep

I ask the fairy queen if it was she who had made an ass of me or

if that too was self - inflicted I am maple drained of sweetness whittled

to a point I am a chamois of the carpathians drilling you dead in

the eye I am the baron sitting so pleasantly in line for the throne

asking in fog what is a decision & fast asleep what is a child

This poem was originally published in Paragon Press in Aug. 2019.