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Prometheus’s Regret, by M.B. McLatchey

Posted on December 10, 2019

I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade. -Soldier’s Creed

The Hand

A harder man was what I meant to make, my print
an atlas stitched to a boy’s soft side. His mind changed
from the heat inside my palm -awakened to a god
who trades in brother love and psalms.

The Head

So neatly planned, but look how you have lost him.
See how our quiet Titan lifts the sky? Never an ending
or starting. Always the twilight of shoulders changed into
mountain ranges; always the life force tested and departing.

The Heart

Raiment of gold, a bronze shield, all the rivers on earth,
I would give back. how to weigh the gains against
the losses? The anthem instead of the man; a mother’s
birth-breaths; the ground still soft where he took his first steps.

*The Miletus*
International Literary Magazine
Fall 2019