FIRSTBORN


The weeks go by. I shelve them,
They are all the same, like peeled soup cans …
Beans sour in their pot. I watch the lone onion
Floating like Ophelia, caked with grease:
You listless, fidget with the spoon.
What now? You miss my care? Your yard ripens
To a ward of roses, like a year ago when staff nuns
Wheeled me down the aisle …
You couldn’t look. I saw
Converted love, your son,
Drooling under glass, starving …
We are eating well.
Today my meatman turns his trained knife
On veal, your favorite. I pay with my life.