Birth

words are
soft fibers
    brushing the back of the skull;
    tickling
imaginations
evanescent, shivering frames
of tenuous quarks that shy
away from fingertips, even as
they are drawn to you,
to your tears of frustration,
humiliation and rage
      at your ineptitude

eyes roll and tongues flail,
webs are spun,
              barbed syllables tangled
              in dream-sweat and mist, to whip 
cruelly onto the skin of your thoughts
stripping the roughness,
shaving away the ego, your mark;
             
the scream is pain
              flesh shudders as it expels,
              the seed of a universe;
the smile is inevitable
as the flowering of suns
for joy, for grief
of permanent separation
           
and as the spine uncurls,
the babe's cry is given wings,
and out of its virgin throat
the sound unfurls,
flies free;
                  an independent entity.