Watching you surface from the primordial dark into the world
of formaldehyde & gray latex was like watching an octopus

change formation with the blink of its eyelids. You were a wet ball
of red yarn & in that moment I wanted to die while you slept

across my chest. The best feelings are not named & you were a human
feeling light press against your mind for the first time. A perfect

chrysalis, the beginning of knowledge. I held you like a water balloon,
a pinned grenade, the extension cord of your mother who lay there

in the glory & pain of inevitable creation. Dear god please say
you didn’t destroy her body. Say the fallen angel inside her breathing

will find flight once again. You have changed the whole dynamic.
I won’t sleep for years. I will show you with my arms how to cocoon

until a pearl of sun cuts out the moon & you break into a wild blue.
My child, may you too learn to laugh like the trees at midnight.