PAD Day 4

This one's a bit darker and more misanthropic than my usual work.  It rose up out of the today's double prompt:  (1)Write a poem with the title "Hold That ________", and (2)write a poem that takes its title from one of the unusual names for spaceships in the stories of Scottish author Iain M. Banks.  You can find examples in the NaPoWriMo blog for today.  So naturally I combined the two into one weird title, which resulted in one weird poem:

Hold That Prosthetic Conscience

over your head and wave it

like a plastic leg, its straps flapping

and slapping against themselves.

Pop out that sympathetic  glass eye,

let it roll across the table like a prized aggie -

it doesn't help you see better anyway.

Grab another drink with your artificial hand -

constrict the metals bands that substitute

for muscles.  Hug with it, but know

it will never really feel.

Take everything off at bedtime,

even your altruistic teeth, and ease

your incomplete head to your pillow,

knowing you can dream terrible dreams

without guilt, while your moral center

rests on a chair in the corner.

I should also take the opportunity here to thank my dear friend Kelly Fineman for featuring my sonnet "January Aubade", and talking up my new book, on her blog today.