Shopping with the Unborn
Grocery store clerks and cashiers
eye your swelling presence, some able to smile
at the nine months of dark journey
that dropped them here.
A stock boy pauses for a fleeting
stare, grieving his own flight through space,
and the baker takes in your rising
with a practiced eye.
Hand reaching for a loaf of twelve-grains,
I feel your propulsions, startling
purpose achieved in a foot of space,
and I see how firmly you will walk,
how wisely you will fill your pockets
so that the trail left through the forest (never meant
for finding the way back) will feed
birds with soft rush of wings behind you and
even those who don’t want to be found.
Years after I’ve wrinkled and left, when driving
your ancient wife to the grocery store is an all-day event,
you will both be used to this joy
of existence. Even the miraculous
wears the mundane of subsistence. Shining
particulars chosen to fit your frame will begin
to fade or fall like relics as you strip
secrets from the bark, siphon book
from blade and pause again for butterfly
wings as those around you start to celebrate
how long you've stayed.
Grocery store clerks and cashiers
eye your swelling presence, some able to smile
at the nine months of dark journey
that dropped them here.
A stock boy pauses for a fleeting
stare, grieving his own flight through space,
and the baker takes in your rising
with a practiced eye.
Hand reaching for a loaf of twelve-grains,
I feel your propulsions, startling
purpose achieved in a foot of space,
and I see how firmly you will walk,
how wisely you will fill your pockets
so that the trail left through the forest (never meant
for finding the way back) will feed
birds with soft rush of wings behind you and
even those who don’t want to be found.
Years after I’ve wrinkled and left, when driving
your ancient wife to the grocery store is an all-day event,
you will both be used to this joy
of existence. Even the miraculous
wears the mundane of subsistence. Shining
particulars chosen to fit your frame will begin
to fade or fall like relics as you strip
secrets from the bark, siphon book
from blade and pause again for butterfly
wings as those around you start to celebrate
how long you've stayed.