The Child That Never Was


Speak clearly, little man. Those curious eyes, know all I have forgotten.
Remind me again, the place you came from. Your grip around my pinkie is
desperate. You are, I know,
dying
to tell me about birth. I know,
you’d kill
to see me reborn. I know,
you’d birth me yourself if you could.
The strength of being lost for words and frightened marble eyes.
I am asking you to pick me apart – dumb ignorance. I know,
absolutely nothing
of the river,
of the bird or the bee.
Your needle fingers – wells of a wise man holding on for disdained life
in shell shock. The blood beneath your ragdoll skin
rumbling away between organs made of the same stuff, stardust.
Are you part life? Part death? Part both? Tell me,
stardust to stardust, infant to infant, man to man
about the places you’ve been, the things you’ve seen. Cry in sounds
I can understand. Scream or whisper them. Speak into my adult hands.

I am waiting for a revelation.

*

I can see you in there, trapped behind your eyes, cooing all day
and when you scream it’s not for me, but for your mommy. I know,
what you’d say. You’d say:

If a helpless thing such as myself, can crawl out of death and into life,
then surely,
a helpless thing such as yourself, can crawl out of life and into death.


Yes.
You are wise
beyond your years. A teacher from the sky and I know,
by the time your speech is clear, you’ll have forgotten the stars,
overcome with dark.

I am waiting for a revelation.
I’m waiting for God.

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