Playthings of the Gods

In Thessalonika, an old man cursed

Angelina’s grandfather before he sailed

to America. Now, in Brooklyn, her blithering

brother and her paranoid sister cackle

as they spit at each other and scratch

initials into their skin. Her mother, as mad

as her offspring, corrodes from breast cancer.

At 40 Angelina fingers malignant tumors,

opts for a double mastectomy, not chemo,

so she can bear another child; her son

won’t be as bereft as she. Still barren

as a nun, she prays poisoned genes

and an old man’s curse have exhausted

themselves. She ignores the twisted horns

rearing in the bracken behind her house.