Aceldama

Eternity is uncorrupted light;

the world proceeds by interrupting sight,

exchanging day and night.

Half the acts of earth avoid the sun;

much that’s done

may be begun by day but end at night:

aborted, buried light

is customary here; it shocks no more

than does a war

such as the one we wage against the innocents”

supreme offense

receives its time of rest at end of day:

we get away

with most of what we do”or so it seems

in darkened dreams.

Millions, millions scraped out by the left

hand and the right. Rounding bellies cleft,

translucent fingers reft

from reaching hands. “Curettage” is the word

fit to be heard;

“killing by ripping the baby apart” is cruel

and seldom heard in school.

“Suction” pulls the nerves and bones away

like child’s play,

like sucking a soft strawberry through a straw.

The moral law

has been “salted out”: it comes out burned

instead of churned

and bears grotesque resemblance to a man

in a can.

The doctor pricks earth’s salt into the womb

and makes of it a sour, corrupted tomb.

Authorities assume

that no soul has been poisoned by this cup,

calling up

the methods and anesthetizing sermons

invented by the Germans.

A final and emergency solution

is occlusion

through disseverance: life is cleanly blocked,

birth cropped.

The result looks like a Jew who’s crawled

from Buchenwald

dead. Our instrument’s the arrogance

of ignorance.

Devils entertained in darkness resemble

angels, and by nature will dissemble.

Saints, believe and tremble

as the world in dark and light revolves.

But life resolves

itself in light, and disobedience

is washed from innocence

like dark blood dabbed from busy doctors’ fingers.

All that lingers

is the uncorrupted will of God in light;

no night

will turn behind that single, perfect day.

Burned away

is all that festers, kills, denies and stains.

God remains.