| Love set you going like a fat gold watch. |
|
| The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry |
| Took its place among the elements. |
| |
| Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue. |
| In a drafty museum, your nakedness |
5 |
| Shadows out safty. We stand round blankly as walls |
| |
| I'm no more your mother |
| Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow |
| Effacement at the wind's hand. |
| |
| All night your moth-breath |
10 |
| Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen: |
| A far sea moves in my ear. |
| |
| One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral |
| In my Victorian nightgown. |
| Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square |
15 |
| |
| Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try |
| Your handful of notes: |
| The clear vowels rise like ballons. |
