Baby Is Desperate

The newborn has pneumonia,
has been asleep for thirty-seven hours,
this season, this cold, this era
has lasted too long,
and this town,
needs to burn to the fucking floor,
outside this town,
there's a whole earth that gets to thrive
and swell with beauty,

the baby is in the third drawer down,
I was too tired to hold her anymore,
I needed sleep too,
plus, I don't think she'll be waking up,

my eyes are as glassy and lifeless as hers
i notice while staring into the mirror
who belonged to my grandmother, mildew
in the corners, or is that mildew on my walls?

How could I have not kept it breathing?
Failure, failure,
does not ring like church bells,
putting her in the drawer seemed sane,

she quite breathing a while ago,
i don't know the proper procedure at this point,
they don't teach us things like
where to take your baby when it spits up
blood clots and asperates it's own vomit,

they teach us how to feel guilty
immediately wanting to slide the evidence
under a floor board
with the roaches and the syringes

it's wrong,
and the evangelists were right,
i'd go to hell if i died right now,
but i'm not trying to mask my fault
i'm just ignorant
and she didn't have pneumonia afterall.