When A Child Is Born Poem by Mark Heathcote

When a child is born
it is but a blooded thorn
a blooded rose
pricked of flesh
and pressed to the breast in clothes.
Some say it is odourless
and Spartan of any remiss
but however-much-promise
extrapolates each individual-soul
there is always evil here at home.
Cancer which inflicts a heavyweight
that lingers unsettlingly to pollinate
the innocent whilst they'd incubate
and then, just like the rose
the black spot grows.