Hairshirt Poem by Sharon Kelly

I'll show you your crypt
Then your perilous days
Clutch your querulous nights
Cross life's binding ukase

Imprisoned and nameless
Within the core of another
Augmented unnaturally
Of father and mother

A symphony wailing
Heralds your visceral ingress
Now you're observed and you're corporal
Time branded, unblessed

Your days, an apartheid
From childhood to fledged
An unaided existence
A life lived, alleged

But your abyss is communal
And the shunned find the shamed
Now a family misshapen
You have kin and a name

Your brothers betrothed
To their iniquitous ways
Your sisters lie prone
Immodest, depraved

You'll never see beauty
In its flawless design
You'll never hear song
Pristine, refined

Each of us have
Our directors of fate
To which we unknowingly avow
Without wane or debate

Your life was your hairshirt
It lays next to your crypt
To your contemptible life
I declare it in script