A Sacrifice to the Gods of Mundane

A Sacrifice to the Gods of Mundane

by Laura Summerville Reed

Words forgotten; time gone

Images in my mind still

Crisp as apples in my teeth

Committed to paper

Now

Committed to the earth

Decayed

Rusty spirals binding nothing

They were the rosy-prosy, pretty things

They were dark, metaphorical things

They were the fruit flies drowned

In my Spanish red wine

They were the moon

That controlled the tide

At the most inconvenient times

They were never-spoken names

With bits of me attached

And

I

Threw them out

If I died while my children were young

Who could blame me then?

One must protect what is precious

Especially oneself

Like flesh pressed into flesh

The first velvet ache where life is conceived

And born from the womb of my mind

My pen pressed to the paper

Uncertain of the things

That compelled the act

But sure the act would be all I needed

Then

I

Tossed you away

To keep the peaceable kingdom

And to the gods of mundane

I sacrificed my first born

Upon the incense of a garbage pyre

I censored myself

I sliced my own tongue

Into the sides of my cheeks

Carved pretty words with a silent sword

That sang my babies to sleep

©LSR 2010