Hands are bleeding, raw. I scrub and scrub but the smell will not lift. How can I hold my children with these hands now? How can I kiss them goodnight with lips that have issued such instruction?

A cleansing fire always burns little Mandus, but it purifies and it makes anew. Did it hurt to carve out the fevered flesh? Did it hurt to cut free the gangrenous foot? Ask instead this: Can we save them?

He who makes a beast of himself removes himself from the pain of being human.

This dawning Epoch, this age of reason. An empire grown fat, ripe for the bleeding.

Higgeldy Piggeldy blue china eyes
My love comes to me in the fairest disguise
We skips and we totters
I seize her hind trotters
And enter her porcelain thighs.