[lit-ideas] LOVE POEM #1002

  • From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 04:21:16 -0500

STRANGE CUSTOMS


North of here 
people 
kill their children 
and eat them.  
Or so I'm told.  
At what age?  I wondered. 
But no one knew.  

The wind is too cold, I've also heard.  
All the trees cut down long ago.  
It's the only way they can survive
cruel winter,
by burning their children --
they don't eat them,
that's an old canard.

Still others claim
it's only some peoples
north of here
and they don't eat or burn their kids
but bury them still alive
and five years later 
dig up their bones
that have turned to gold.

I guess that's just 
the way love is.


Mike Geary
Memphis

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