Engineering

Engineering

Blanched celery, intentionally albino,
covered with paper at ripening
to keep out sun’s greening rays,

unlike the red-eyed boy kept hidden
in the empty cistern, born in a suspicious
country where accidents of birth

make the odd one a target for stones.
He’s only safe at night, when mother
draws him up with rope, agate-eyed

and cold, to sit awhile in her soft lap,
eat the red and brown things she brings
to darken his magic, dim his bright.