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.
