kill your darlings

The burdened stork commits infanticide.

Staining the parturition crocheted-white,

with crimson splashes and shards of wingbone.

The fated flightless flight. Darlings. Shriek. Stone.

The bird rejoices at slain proteges.

Its frictive dependents butchered in vain -

serial monogamous obloquy.

Storks, the couriers of nimiety.

Cruel mute beaks when killing their darlings.

Crestfallen witnesses watch: the starlings

murmur, appalled in their murmuration,

that storks kill blessings just for sensation.

Now, behold a sanguinary phalanx

mirrored in our abstruse human ranks.

© Mollie Mardel