Whooping Cough
By Raj Dronamraju
Scare the children with talk of whooping cough and stranger danger
Scare the children unnecessarily, don’t put your fingers in your mouth
Don’t pet the dog whose tail doesn’t wag and who looks at you with suspicious eyes
Scare the children whose preference is to be indoors
And who hoard calories like toy cars or barbie dolls
Leapfrog the necessary schoolyard clashes and the introduction of defeat
Sterile and alive, he screams wordlessly when he is stained by life for the first time
Scare the children with enforced autism, sealed in plastic and put away until next use
She found herself with one of these hermetically sealed boys
She kept him in the corner of the living room
Like a piece of fragile artwork that could easily be damaged
Copyright © by the owner.
