3D

by Ian Mullins

They carve two days of fat
from the seven-day sirloin
and say here, they’re yours,
cook them how you like: but why
do they consume the other five?
Are they children I send off
to school so I can keep
the others alive? Monday’s child

is no less beautiful that Sunday’s;
but there she troops, down into
the work-face. I surrender her sisters
to teach them the life-lesson that crowns,
like bullets, are randomly aimed
at random heads, but who demands
I teach them such lessons?

No one but the puppet master
at the heart of the world, telling us
the strings are only there to keep us
tall and straight, so we can look on
with pride as he separates our children
into dreamers, drudges or dregs.