The Bitterness of Children

By Thomas Lux b. 1946 Thomas Lux

Foreseeing typographical errors

on their gravestones, the children

from infancy—are bitter.

Little clairvoyants, blond, in terror.

Foreseeing the black and yellow

room behind the eyelids, the children

are bitter—from infancy.

The blue egg of thirst: say hello.

Foreseeing the lower lips of glaciers

sliding toward their own lips, the children

from infancy—are bitter.

Them, rats, snakes: the chased and chasers.

Foreseeing a dust-filled matchbox, the heart,

the temples’ temples closing, the children

are bitter—from infancy.

From the marrow in the marrow: the start.

Source: New and Selected Poems 1975-1995 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997)

Biography

Acclaimed poet and teacher Thomas Lux began publishing haunted, ironic poems that owed much to the Neo-surrealist movement in the 1970s. Critically lauded from his first book Memory’s Handgrenade (1972), Lux’s poetry has gradually evolved towards a more direct treatment of immediately available, though no less strange, human experience. Often using ironic or sardonic speakers, startlingly apt imagery, careful rhythms, and . . .

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