Deep in the jewel box where it lay
The new-born infant stared with onyx eyes
Asking to be read behind each
Eyelash sprouting from its minute
Full-grown head.
As I watched the carved magnificence,
The glowing midget cheek, the pared
And half-moon nails, the spiral
Junctures where the flesh turned
To hidden rose,
I heard the doctor’s cough nearby
And felt behind his guarded hand
Those thumping homespun mouthfuls
Garrulous and out of place
As virgin jokes.
Then I knew the child was mine,
Its box the casket of imagined form,
The contents effigy of hopeless
Momentary life regained, immaculate
And still-born.
And the doctor, offhand, coarse,
Prattling of something else,
Audience-catharsis to the act, waiting
Ubiquitous to swallow it in the grave
Of a laugh.
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