 |
| Image source: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints |
How best to
sacrifice a child?
Hand him over
to gang-leaders’ guns?
Pay for blood
in coinage?
Or give him to
government forces
in a simple box
I nailed myself?
Open her body
before the cathedral
with a scythe?
Or go to the U.S.
and shiver in a cage
without food
or shower or a bed?
Solomon, tell me
how to divide
this child
so her soul
can sing tomorrow.
David Radavich's latest book is America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019), companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007). Other recent poetry collections are Middle-East Mezze (2011) and The Countries We Live In (2014). He has served as president of the Thomas Wolfe Society, Charlotte Writers' Club, and North Carolina Poetry Society and currently administers the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series.