The Egg, The Womb, The Head and The Moon.

they enter the world naked, struggling

into the avalanche of the different colours of light

the various textures of air

the drowning notes of breathing and sea

the lack of heartbeat

 

they wave arms like antennae, feet like pennants

their skins are super-charged with the anticipation

of earth and all its family of grit, moss, snail-slime

 

these are the newborn

that carry the thunderous freight

of a world’s longing to continue

 

they enter the world naked

and leave it with perhaps a nightdress

and a hippocampus drawing the curtain down

on 80 years of films they’ve been telling themselves

were real