G. Louis Heath- A Poem

Flowers For The Unborn

If you get really unlucky and are born,

I am morally bound to advise you to kick

holes in your cradle, make war on your

sippy cup. Trash your onesies, shit your

twosies. Spit out the pabulum Mom serves.

Teeth the knees of your daycare providers .

Fail grade school. Don’t go out for sports.

Strike against matrimony. Tie Mom’s tubes that

dumped  you into this abyss of rotting afterbirth.

We will do our part to make sure this does

not happen, that you are not born. We need to

end this. We promise not to disturb your generation,

The Great Unborn, ever again, with our great and

wanton lust. Hear us now cry dispassionately,

“No more births!”

We hope it is some consolation to know

that we will place flowers on your grave

even though you were never born.


G. Louis Heath, Ph.D., Berkeley, 1969, teaches at Ashford University, Clinton, Iowa. He enjoys reading his poems at open mics. He often hikes along the Mississippi River, stopping to work on a poem he pulls from his back pocket, weather permitting. His books include Mutiny Does Not Happen Lightly, Long Dark River Casino and Vandals In The Bomb Factory. His most recent poems have been published in Poppy Road Review, Writing Raw, Inkstain Press, Verse-Virtual, and Squawk Back. He can be contacted at gheathorov@gmail.com