They said the plague began in the air
but no one remembers breathing
in the third reformation they abolished birth
too random, they said, too biological
instead, downloads, children made to order
skin like chrome, no organs, just algorithms
wrapped in synthetic blood
some still clung to the old ways
wombs went black market
the government called their children aberrant
but they remembered
not facts but feelings, not data but depth
they unspoke encryption
their veins filled with music
that no machine could translate
churches declared them blasphemous
but still they persevered
the world called them abominations
but the sky opened only for them
and that was the greater heresy
that something made of pain and earth
could be ever loved by the stars
© Ann Bagnall
Annie's Poetry 