for Oscar Christoph’s birth
Wax, little moon.
Between toes and forehead,
your fullness remembers itself.
It’s still dark in your palms,
darker still in your mouth,
yet there beats and beats
a whole novel
world round
your rolling ears,
your found thumbs,
your warm red
firmament—
an outer-space sound,
a faint father voice,
perhaps a new sky,
an up and a down. But what
are up and down and out
to all your roundness?
Wax, little moon. Make strong
fists. Send your non-too-solid
glaucous splendor out
with the tide and light
your knowing mouth
gravely.
Airily.
Then loudly,
land and summon us.
*pomp—Shoshone: unborn child
