FIRST BORN

That morning my world shifted,
shook itself,
arched like a limbered cat
to give you space.

Though your voice was small
it was new, possessing the power
of all helpless things.
Your first cry shot me far
from the cannon of fashion frippery
into some foreign orbit
wrapping me with responsibility.

For nine months we lived together
warm and close, our hearts
beating cool rhythms.
How did all that Bach later turn into
Thin Lizzy and Pink Floyd?
Sometimes you moved about-
such a quiet tenant
mysterious, un-scanned,
a marker of small disturbances.

The you arrived by special delivery,
uniquely complete.
Each day you moved a fraction away,
the separation slight as the brush
of an Osprey plume.
Small astronaut outside his mother ship
lulled by the pull of his
own special moon.

"Prism", Alma Brayden