Dirt Blood

There is a softness about the pillowy folds of a swath of baby

That elicits an urge to be malicious. It tastes like bile and poisons my gaze.

I try to spit it out, a mouth-

Full of blood, this sweet iron,

This

Blood bond. Logically then: blood-letting, my cure.

I make a cut where the ailments grow: In the bodies

Of these infants, an act of loving generosity that drags out my dinner

And this confession the wrong way out, in puddles of baby food.

I am made cruel by the fear of a weaker panda twin. I will be

Abandoned in a mewing swath, because cruelty accumulates

Across generation and I am learning only from the best.