Circumcision
Is a big decision.
A work of precision
Without derision.
My suspicion,
Is that there's no contrition,
For creating a partition
In my limited edition.
Why on an infant,
Do we use the blade?
Perhaps God wanted
Our glans in shade.
If baby boys could speak,
At the age of one week,
Or even three days,
You'd hear them say,
I'd rather you feed me,
Than have me flayed.
And so you see that circumsion,
Very well should be,
A big decision.
And since our mothers make the choice,
On whether our foreskin to destroy,
The surgeon's knife to deploy,
We simply ask in this moment of vision,
That you insure...absolute precision.
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Vivisection
Nothing not soft. Dim undulating cloudlets.
Merging, milk-sweet dawn. Mild pink touchable world.
Vague filmy shapes coalescing languidly
To lucent curtains of continuity …
Screech! Steel on steel! Sharp, jagged, yellow-white
Light, blinding, on, off, on. Acrid taste. Spit.
Scorched skin. Men fully armed emerge
From the horse’s belly. Planes hit. Towers crumple. Howling, howling …
But no, this doesn’t matter. It is well known
The infant feels no pain. They told us so.
Besides, he won’t remember. His brain is immature.
No problem. The scream is just a reflex.
Yes, like those lower forms of life there , dumb beasts
Lumbering on their way to hamburger. No souls like ours,
They feel nothing, nothing. ( But their eyes? Their moans? )
No, we know better. They do not truly feel the pain.
Have faith. The doctors know, the professors,
What can come from their learned mouths but truth?
No one asks the beasts, the boy, his mother,
Who might surmise a slightly different truth.
He has stopped screaming. He will recover, certainly.
Almost certainly. But his soft world? His paradise?
Lost. The world is all before him.
Why bother to discuss this? It is done.
As always. The great beards nod in approval.
It is done as it was of old ordained.
All’s well, traditions have been maintained.
this one hurts. i've questioned the necessity of this procedure on boys and girls (i've written one, "fgm (for maria)" on the female variant). tradition? who knows?
you've opened up a whole new avenue of discussion and penned a thought provoking piece--well done!
especially love the last line--ain't it the truth :)
(((HUGS))) and love, karla. :)
necessity of this procedure....I would imagine it
to be unbearable pain for that poor innocent baby..
I would love to know just how necessary it is..
Who first recommended it and why?...good writing..
floria
but anyway....I thoroughly enjoyed this, thanks.