Delivery Rhyme
By Dora Malech
For Alyssa
As anyone
is apt to, you began as someone
else’s symptom. As in
other beginnings: drawn lots, blood,
some dancing on the heads of pins
and inside needles’ eyes,
cellular revelry,
hopping
of microscopic
turnstiles. Lucky guest,
grist, leapt
long odds to spark
the tinder in the dark.
Then, the subcommittees met:
made merry in duplicate, triplicate
and so on, much of themselves, divided
and divined and concurred.
All sides insides, pre-ambulatory
perambulation meant: sure
ambit, short orbit
in a warm aquarium set
to the muffled music of a single sphere.
As in other beginnings: parting seas, the future’s
violent egress, screams and sutures,
aftermath’s average agony
on umbilical belay
but soon to solo, unfold all
those origami limbs to test
the inevitable debutante bawl.
Wrest from the nest
and the rest is you, dear:
dressed for the bright lights
in bits of my sister.
