Today marks the last of the beginning of your life
inside the tire center of your mother’s body.

Today I wear a sailor’s suit & a sailor’s hat &
the mouth of a helium tank. I’ve been practicing this

gig like a Clydesdale in a wedding dress in anticipation
of your naked parade. No matter what you are

I want to call you Jo-Jo & dance with you on my shoulders
on a pogo stick to Mars. I would tackle the ocean

for you. I would spit in the eyes of a buried American
to hear you whimper helpless nettles. You want

a piglet? I’ll purchase the farm. You want a blanket
made out of angels? Consider my globed hands

heaven. Today I am not your father, not an animal
with a human face & a half-blasted job. Today

I am the energy connecting disparate worlds together
by eating vending machine delicacies, rubbing

your precious incubator’s legs & feet, cheering you both
on to Chapter 9: How to Control Never-Ending Light.

There should be a language for the day before the day
before. When stop signs bow low, the streets go holy noir,

when darkness is pure & the air inside a memory
leaks out to create something out of such a loud nothing.