The Altar
The first time
you hold a newborn,
and look into their eyes,
you discover
there is almost nothing
you would not surrender.
You count breaths
in the dark.
Then,
sitting beside
your parent’s bed.
Again,
you count breaths,
except now
they belong
to someone
who once counted yours.
You pray—
even if you have never believed.
No one asks then,
What level of loss
would be acceptable?
No one calculates
how many heartbeats
can be lost
without affecting
the quarterly report.
Love
doesn’t speak
that language.
But somewhere else,
beneath fluorescent lights
and polished conference tables,
another faith gathers.
There,
the sacred word
is acceptable.
Not harmless.
Acceptable.
A little cancer.
A few more children
born too soon.
Some hearts
that fail decades early.
They call it
acceptable risk.
As though suffering,
divided into percentages,
becomes too small
to matter.
Grief,
spread thinly
across a continent,
does not disappear.
It accumulates.
One child
born too soon.
Then thousands more.
One grandfather
who never meets
his granddaughter.
Then thousands more.
Until the losses
become too many
to imagine—
yet still
small enough
to fit inside
a spreadsheet.
Together,
an offering.
Not laid upon
a stone altar,
but upon the altar
of the Economy,
where prosperity
is promised
to the fortunate few
if only enough strangers
are willing
to bleed.
The priests
wear business suits.
Their sermons
begin with growth.
The incense
smells faintly
of diesel,
pesticides,
plastic,
and profit.
And every sacrifice
is called necessary.
Until
acceptable risk
learns your address.
Until it knocks
on your front door.
Until the offering
is your child.
Then,
suddenly,
the calculation changes.
No one calls
your child
an acceptable
sacrifice.
Until the offering
is your child.
Then,
suddenly,
the calculation changes.
Horrifying.........