MYTH OF PARENTHOOD

One tedious rainy day, looking at the grey
with empty eyes, they catch a sort of viral whim—
‘Oh Babe’, she says, ‘Why don’t we make a child?’

At first he stares at her, just terrified,
as if a long-predicted curse
had bumped into his head.
‘There´s always time for that!’, he fences back.
But deaf she presses on: ‘Yeah, a little thing
to hold close to my breasts, with little life in it
for us to shape; a little doll to play
the way I did when I was little; a little toy
to give some meaning to pointless, little life.’

And then, all of a sudden,
a sort of pride enters his soul
responding to an old conditioning,
as if there was something in his genes
worthy of preservation, countless generations
swimming dormant in his blood,
the mystery of existence to be solved.
And so with male conviction he replies:
‘Yes, Babe, let´s do the thing,
let´s make the little life you want,
let´s make a doll, a pet, a child,
for us to play with and ratify we’re human;
let’s be painter-, poet-, artist-like
and DNA a masterwork.’

And they get busy with wet jobs,
and nine months past —give or take a week—
a child is born, crying,
not knowing why, or for what end or reason
it is here, nor what´s the meaning of this world
whose morbid light blinds suddenly its vision.

It´ll never know, while lost in tortuous mazes.

Life´s barren paths it´ll walk escorted by three Graces,
Sickness, Pain & motley Death,
and Senility their slow retainer—
for some weak spirits the gentler of the Crew.

Hope that it walks in silence then,
not cursing its creators for the yoke
with those essential words
the flock is most afraid of
and most readily condemns:

‘By what right divine or human
did you bring me into this prison?
Father, Mother, I hate you both!’