Lured to the streets of a lay-over city,
a place foreign to my soul, a mob
of askant stares, titillated expectancy,
shrill hawking of flesh and wares,
and placards enticing, promising all;
I walked halls narrowed by sideshow trite:
latex attempts at grotesquerie, cast horrors,
a two-headed this and a five legged that,
the longest, thinnest, the nastiest things.
Quickly contrite, I sought an out-door,
but down-cast eyes led me astray into
the dim, sad light of a smaller corridor.
Each bottle hovered in its own alcove.
Suspended by and washed by, so slow,
a stainless, sterile sluice, a gentle sate,
each “malfeasant of nature” each
“quirk of fate” slept in its own forever.
Each baby was lite for affect and show:
a stunted webbed limb, a bulbous head,
a truncated body without appendage,
a Cyclops, a hermaphrodite, a Hydra;
each a double handful of sorrow for show.
By what were these unions frowned upon:
a gene glitch run rampant, toxicosis,
a gods punishment, or mans violence?
A cause cries for blame for through
the particled sate a delicate eyelid,
a perfect toe, alludes to original joy,
though fleeting, of a life proposed
but not realized or ordained, but taken.
Who or what along the blade of existence
nixed this one or that one or that?
What were their sins condemning them
to naked display with stitched scars
of exploration visible to see along
the palest of blood freed flesh?
And, where were their souls? Were they
those vague entities of phosphorescent
sheen locked in jars;…..fireflies
snatched from night’s vitrine, stuffed
beneath blankets in trunks in darken rooms?
The phrases, “malfesasant of nature” and “quirk of fate” were taken from a poem by Robert Penn Warren. I can not locate my copy of his collected works to give the poems title. The origin of the idea is somewhat vague in my memory, but I believe it came from reading somewhere, several years ago, that some museum or commercial enterprise had put on a public display of deformed fetuses for whatever reason I can’t remember. Needless to say, this bit of information affected me profoundly as I have worked on this poem over several years. It is time to let it go.
Belated Words 
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