Innocents
Welcome to the dawn, to the stratosphere,
children. You’ve been flung up from the surface
of the Earth as you slept. Now for ages
you can survey the progress of the storm
from this innocent orbit. Do you see
what your parents made of your only home?
It’s not so bad. You won’t be hungry here.
You won’t be sick. You’ll have no friend or foe.
You’ll be a neighbor to indifferent stars,
and you won’t have to hear a trumpet blast.
No hand will rise above you here, no cross
be placed at the head of your empty grave.
Dan Albergotti is the author of The Boatloads (BOA Editions, 2008), Millennial Teeth (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014), and Of Air and Earth (Unicorn Press, 2019). He is a professor of English at Coastal Carolina University.
Header image by Comfreak, courtesy Pixabay. Photo of Dan Albergotti by Holley Tankersley.
