“Dread is the Language by Which We Disguise Our Deeds”

by which we pacify with euphemism

our planned transgressions,

boundaries shifting convenience

into correct countries

is the language by which we pun on pleasure,

pour into our mouths the here-and-now,

an alphabet of aftertaste sour on our tongues

is the two dead children alive

again for the ten seconds it takes to read

in newsprint the absence of their breath

a mistake of transposition,

a column of patient charts

switched like typos

dread is the language

by which the Downs Syndrome girl,

unnamed but not unwritten,

is not the one aborted

first

disguise is the deed that makes the dead

the correction, that stacks together

the specious: the mis-filed, the not-

chosen, the accidentally-left-

for, inconveniently worded, dead.