The Unborn and the Dead
Winner 2nd Place, Balticon Poetry Contest 2022
Poem - by Lorraine Schein
The unborn and the dead have tea
in the parlor of autumn cemeteries
steep pomegranate rinds slowly in early greyed tears,
pour out the red leaves swirling from the bone pot
to read pasts and futures that stain the cups like dried blood.
They each take two casket slabs of sugar
to sweeten the pain of mortality
then sip the grief that will come,
the grief freshly brewed.
The unborn and the dead have met
the same ghosts, psychics, mothers and morticians,
and chat about their homes of dark matter and neighbors:
the embryos moving in, the withered corpses moving out—
the tomb of the womb, the womb of the tomb
where your last hour will be someone’s first.
At night, they whisper together as you fall asleep
while the clock twitches its cold green numbers at your head:
You began in dreams, say the unborn.
You will end as memories, say the dead.