“Warning Label”

I forget what convention panel I was on and who my fellow author was who said this, but I know this poem came out of an offhand comment about “warning: may result in giving birth to the Chosen One.”

So yes, this poem is exactly what it says in the title, a piece written as if it were the instructions and warnings for a very odd bit of medication. (It joins the likes of my stories “Comparison of Efficacy Rates for Seven Antipathetics as Employed Against Lycanthropes” and “Guidelines for Using the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library” for pieces written in an odd format.) It also demonstrates a principle I’ve seen poets discuss before, which is that sometimes, an idea could theoretically work as either a piece of flash or a poem, and how are you to know which one it should be?

In this case I followed the age-old advice of “write both, see which sells first” — which turned out to be the poem! “Warning Label” will be coming out from Foofaraw, and I will update here when it’s published.