put them on display like marie o’day

a traveling freak show of our forever frozen-in-fear children’s bodies captured behind glass

we’ll pay our quarter and gasp

will we find the answer?

as they continue to be riddled by bullets from the sphinx’s arms, can they enter our institutions without having to guess who is on all fours and who walks down hallways holding an end to their innocence, not lost, taken, never to be regained?

one last wrinkle from the protector of Thebes tongue, ‘he slithers on his belly after lunch’

these displays are not an anomaly

nothing to stare at stupefied

they’re genetically modified like the rest of us

a mirror in her casket would prove to be interchangeable

next to the werewolf man, just as believable

our fears

in arranged viewing areas for us to examine

school buildings charging admission for us to safely discover what keeps us up at night when our imaginations are made tangible, agreed upon breeding grounds left to their own devices

desires to smash mores established for greed, desires for their moms to fulfill their needs

and dad’s to stand up, before another one bleeds

and joins the circus