At What Price Will You Sell Your Soul Poem by Sally A Mortemore

bought for the price of a bribe
hung by a tear for a ransom
ink on yellowed composition exchanged
from hands
to hungry mouth
yet —
all bought for the price of a fairytale
and sold by the cost of a promise
another's self-opinionated arrogance
upheld
by a costless quantity
all quality sold
at an unfair
qualitative price
for —
how long is a sense of personal value
how dense is a length of fraying string
too self-centred even to contemplate
ah —
now there's the thing

Sally A Mortemore 2023