A Winning Loss
The broken body of survivors
Begins to breakdown at age 16
The broken body of survivors
Aches daily at age 23
The broken body of survivors
Can no longer move at age 47
Without hearing the crack of
each joint
Pressurized
By the generations
of Labor
The broken body of survivors
Dies
at age 62
a listless body
No longer able to gather the strength
To piece together the chipped edges
Necessary for breath
Cursing the survived
Cursing the surviving
Cursing their survival
Cursing all that ever drove them to
Survive
The Prepossessing
Rip the flowers from the ground
for your own selfish benefit
try to capture life through death
happiness through misery
for the momentary satisfaction
of knowing
You command beauty
Watch the beauty
Watch the youth
Wilt before your possessing eyes
With a conquering satisfaction
That you can command the
life
and death
of the defenseless
Morality Illuminated
How is it just that the just are
eaten up
Stripped of their meaty passion
Their bones sucked dry
of righteousness
Left bare
of all that would progress
their dissectors
Past destruction
Left with understanding
The self-servers will always be fed
Sterilized Nature
Plug up my womanhood
Stave off nature in
favor of the artificial
Chemicalize death
Birth
Growth
Remove breath
Remove life
Remove freedom
Promote saran wrap
Clinging to my sides
Filling me with
Holding in
Commercialized guilt
Shudder at its removal
at the thought
of evolution
Forever shrouding the understood
For the maintaining of
control
R. Pennington is an Indianapolis-based poet. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Swansea University and a master’s degree in English from Northern Illinois University. Her poetry reflects on class barriers and concepts of justice.
