Birth

Birth

What do we remember?

I read about a woman who could recall

the womb, who described it as a shiny, mirrored

substance, slick, the purplish hue of an eggplant.

Another suspended in anti-gravity, shuffled

along in a premature moonwalk.

Still another took a deep-sea dive to 300 fathoms.

Saw pink and blue clouds, heard a reassuring voice.

A man held he was conscious of the car ride

to the hospital. Lyrics. A stop for directions.

The daisy print of his mother’s dress.

Yet another perceived a God-like state in utero.

All-knowing. Euphoric. Only to wriggle

down the birth canal and wake startled,

confined to the pulpy shape of an infant.

Some reminisce—how snug it became.

Elbow dug into thigh, chin pushed against

knee, toe marking forehead.

Ray Bradbury claimed every detail—his head

crushed—a sudden rage of bright light.

And then there was Dalí, who painted his fetal

self-portrait, Eggs on the Plate Without the Plate—

the gooey fried one dangling from a string.

Is it better to have no sense of it?

Becoming human seems such a violent

affair. Hatch heaved open, waters vanquished,

darkness punctured by a lightning strike.

Amnesia, a blessing.

Though, there is something to be said

for struggle—we don’t value

what comes easily.

I wish I could dredge it all up—the soul’s 

unthinkable quest—wild stampede to earth,

oxygen galloping, skin abloom, first

sight, a low contralto of voices,

that divine, bestial pull.

—Massachusetts Review, Vol. LXI, No. 1