Baby, Ignored

The baby lies on the delivery slab, moments old.

White vernix paste marbles the infant's skin.

The stuff smells sweet, like holiday shortbread,

a trick up the wild sleeve of nature

to encourage mothers to lick their newborns clean.

But this mother has left the building.

She pushed the baby out without passion,

releasing it into the void of abandonment,

worth no more to her than the toileted regurgitation

of a drunken binge.

She would flush it, if she could.

Push the handle and watch a season of derision

swirl away and disappear.

People walk by like the baby is already dead.

The silence is oppressive.

Even the child knows better than to fuss.

It watches the funereal procession

of powerless people who honestly don't give a shit

waddle by with their eyes averted,

thinking of their thing, the big thing, 

the thing that will make their pockets fat

as the meconium pooling in their cranial cavities

strangles their reduced capacity for love

and their long-lost ability to believe.

In the face of such harrowing neglect

the baby pisses on itself and dies,

final hubris lost on those who clean up the mess.