First time
infant 
skull 
pressing down on pelvic floor. I stare 
out the hospital window at plain gray buildings 
lining barren gray streets. The wisdom
of the moon 
bears bright 
whispered 
witness. The harvest moon has waxed full inside 
me. This hour marks my passage from writer 
to reader of strange texts, like Kepler trying 
to make sense
of Tycho’s 
data
at 1:00 am.
This event of bone speaks in the broken voice 
of fallen stars and complete loss of agency 
in a crucible 
of pain
when a body
not mine made its own decision to split me 
open in the name of holy ancestors 
who leapt 
from 
ancient
brine 
in some unthinking act of desperation and stayed, 
gasping on dry land. Does the first breath always burn?
Gravity
like love
requires two 
bodies—like 
the two 
who make 
dawn happen. 
I cling to an imagined sunrise through 
the widening dark of this empty hour.