birth

the poem comes wailing out
your chest,
and you nurture it
for a few weeks,
help it walk without
falling
and
finally
see it find its place
in the world,
until time
goes by
and
it's gone --
no longer yours.

you may see it again
among new pages,
but it's no longer
breathing --
it's a memento,
a window, a balcony,
it's a corpse.

it's a reprint of a stab wound
sometime in your life.