Slow Burn: A Poetry Collection

Population Control

Nobody blinked when that freckled

sun-boy drowned

They shook their heads and said, "if only."

When his body ceased

to struggle,

mud caked both lungs

fingers froze, curled around

the fragments of time that had all

but scattered through the gaps in his fingers

The parents sighed at each other

and labored to make a new one,

with little hope of it hailing

a better fate.