Mothers
Fathers
Sisters
Brothers

Children.

And for what?

Birthing sons,
To be put into graves
That cry out from holy spaces,
“Where is the comrade, I left behind?”

mothers, dress your baby boys
in patterns, striped, and shimmering solids.
Dressing them every morning,
Teaching them to dress themselves in the black dust of expectation.
What’s the matter,
When we are merely dressing them up in angels wings?

Not yet.
But soon, they will be left.

Left in hospital beds,
Told,
There’s nothing more we can do.

Left, in the hands of the deep black creature
That swallows many, and breathes fire for the glory
Never to be remembered
Never to be forgotten
Pieces of who we are,
Who we used to be.
Left scarred and broken,
Left reminding yourself every day of only one thing
Being left

The clatter of scrip still ringing in your aching fingers.