Frank Hughes

AN ACT OF PROCREATION

what beatings we have taken—
gave

what we have endures:
poverty, hunger, sickness,
spinal taps,
seizures,
stripped of privacy,
independence,
dignity

my rage
your vengeance
our dissembling

the gods against us

the void’s wide swallow
beneath us

the weight we lost to it
the nerves, stomach, and teeth
we lost to it

the you and me we lost to it

and i did unforgivable things
and you perfected a certain cruelty

and when the end came screaming at us
we fed it fresh, new years
our best years,
our prime of life years
they call them

so we sit here tonight
locked in the silence
our long crafted and patient
hatred built
with its own hands
with nothing to show
for all our dues

but this resentment we
killed ourselves
creating
it sits here

between us
like a dying child
waning
without cure

—from Rattle #25, Summer 2006