Child Sacrifice

her hand holds up her heavy head

with hair pushed back and eyes drawn downward

as if gravity were tugging at her seven times harder

as if her bones were twice as thick

do not ask her for words or speech

her only utterances are guttural and gibberish

mixed with wails and weeping and water

intelligible only to the grief-initiated

she is now drowning in the dark mystery

that any wise mother or father runs from shrieking

these gorgeous, fragile children we make

exact from us sacrifices or become the sacrifice