Condemnation

By Nicholas Dante Failla

My baptism was a guile,

By hands that choked our God.

Out of the sky, he fell to earth

Into the laps of bawds.

My baptism squandered water

From mouths that remade the tide

They filled the font with baneful ritual

While thirsting children died.

My baptism was a veil

Of thoughts corrupt and knell

For when I grew up, they spent their days

Condemning me to hell.

By Nicholas Dante Failla