untitled by Jon Longhi

After being a month late
her period finally arrived
and lasted a painful week
through which we fought
and at the end of that red time
we lay in bed
and she said,
"That was no period,
it was a miscarriage;
it was your baby."
And I asked wanting to know
which of us it more resembled,
"Did it look human?"
"It was little sacs of blood
with tissue in them; human flesh."
"Does this mean one of us
shouldn't have kids?"
I saw cellular meadows
sprawled with my coughing drug twisted
chromosomes.
"What do you think caused it?"
"Partying my ass off
during the first month of its conception."
This was the beach
and I remembered the parties,
all those pot reeking slurred
til the blurred sun rose parties,
through which the fragile thing
had rode like a spider on drunken waves.

Clay figure by Karl Richeson

"Is it all gone?"
"All gone."
"Are you ok?"
"It hurt. It really hurt."
And I thought
"I'm never going to fuck again!"
and then I realized
I'd been fucking in it all week.
I'd been fucking in the goop
of my dead kid,
and then I thought Oh God!
at least it's cheaper than an abortion.
I looked at her
and I didn't know whether to throw up
or fuck her
and I didn't know what to do
so I fucked her.
Child of summer
born in a delirium of drunken lays,
what could not and should not
live into the fall,
crying out and dying before it had a mouth.
Flushed moment to our failures,
though gone we still carry you inside,
like a shadow we curl about in pain
and try to smother helplessly
til none
of your never made breaths remain.

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