Delivery Rhyme

As anyone

is apt to, you began as someone

else’s symptom. As in

other beginnings: drawn lots, blood,

some dancing on the heads of pins

and inside needles’ eyes,

cellular revelry,

hopping

of microscopic

turnstiles. Lucky guest,

grist, leapt

long odds to spark

the tinder in the dark.

Then, the subcommittees met:

made merry in duplicate, triplicate

and so on, much of themselves, divided

and divined and concurred.

All sides insides, pre-ambulatory

perambulation meant: sure

ambit, short orbit

in a warm aquarium set

to the muffled music of a single sphere.

As in other beginnings: parting seas, the future’s

violent egress, screams and sutures,

aftermath’s average agony

on umbilical belay

but soon to solo, unfold all

those origami limbs to test

the inevitable debutante bawl.

Wrest from the nest

and the rest is you, dear:

dressed for the bright lights

in bits of my sister.