Entry Point

The midwife's forceps
held against a waxing moon -

an astrolabe,
an obsterical fillet:

here - take them.
Stand and wait.

Adam drifts in
his space-womb

weightless as
a mayfly's wing.

Not breathing
floating in blood,

he turns as Jupiter
aligns itself with Mars,

senses his father
smoking a cigar.

Voices echo through
the birthing chambers -

his mother and her
handmaidens

high on the oxygen
of childbirth.

He can feel the icy
stethoscope,

the constant stroking
of his mother's

well-packed
stomach

encouraging the
codex within.

Twist and turn -
sunny side up!

He hears cigar ash
fall to the

waiting room floor,
the hands of the hospital

clock edging closer
to the moment when

warmth turns to cold,
darkness to light.

He turns again. The dead
of night is giving way,

shifting the patterns
embroidered in the sky.

But still he waits.
His eyes are not yet ripe.

His skin bristles
with fine hair.

His fingernails
scratch the inner wall.

The codex settles, chimes.
He emerges in an instant,

with a gloop and
a splash, a willow man,

whole, wrapped in a
translucent enzyme -

a row of steel dishes
reflecting his image.

The hand of the clock
moves relentlessly on.

The cigar is stubbed
to a cinder. Blood

water, steel, and ash
mark his entry point.