APA Newsletters

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2

Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine

Papers, Poems and Narratives

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Killing Its Parents
The Last for Blueprints: A collection of poems

Jody Azzouni
Tufts University

What a thing to do to a child: put

it in a sandbox, and watch

as everything slips through its fingers.

When it is old enough to take revenge,

it will plant a hex in the cellar,

water the markings with dust,

and watch the tombstones grow.

From then on its hands will be the wrong shade

no matter how much it washes them in light.

Years before the bodies are packed away,

the ghosts will be about,

lurking in bathroom mirrors, its mate's face,

the gestures of its offspring;

and staring surly,

should it try to look at itself

or at something it loves.

Years before the bloodless deed is finally done,

it will hire exorcists:

paying dearly for the couch rites

of the strange doctors

who dabble in the dark arts of therapy.

Each evening

when it could be in bed with a friend,

it will polish the totems in the cellar

until it is time to mark the pale stone

with names and dates

and move them out to the graveyard.

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APA Newsletters

Spring 2001 Volume 00, Number 2

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2