Fulcrum (short poem)
A protest against the poor treatment of children
He was wild, exhausted and hungry, lost across space and time, out of place and sorts And so was I His small body turned pirouetting, he spun, eyes distant I only wanted to leave and he claimed to want only to stay He fought me, resisted, raised his voice with incoherent words and unlearned grammar I filled my lungs with breath, fury gathering, to be let loose Instead, I lost consciousness And the galaxy spun, drifting at speeds I could never know Planets, clinging at the edges to simply hang on My own lifeforce, I felt it, tethered to the uncountable numbers that had come before me I felt the lives that existed on distant planets, all their comings and goings, fireflies at sundown The black holes collected at the center of the galaxy reached out, clawed at me, tugging My own mind, I could feel it rage with life, and part of it, an ancient evil filled with the pain of every birth and every loss, it snapped with electricity crackled as it settled, and then beat at my brain like an ocean tide of heat and cold and out of it came the slap of the open hand of my great great great grandmother whistling at me again and again Words shouted in numb disappointment And also God touched me through every conduit we have ever known, every true messiah, every hero I felt them with me wondering what I would do next And when I came to, I found him in my arms His shoulders gripped in my hands his face awash with innocence and terror wondering what I would do next