the first a face a tantric paste a bookend of lights one electric and waspish

stinging eyes not yet fully open the other an orgasm a tickertape parade

that ends with something incomprehensible      its duality you see

there are parties for the friends your mother begged to come round

there are parties where you piss yourself and everyone drinks and drinks

because you are dying and somewhere between the cut of the umbilicus

and the brackish thrust of the machine that made your final breath

is a dizzying display of radiance, the northern lights inside your cerebellum  

and everything’s exploding all at once but Christ what would it be

to brace those tiny feet against the bone,  to cut out these perverted histrionics,

the fireworks of grief and beauty, to settle for nine months of amniotic bliss

to return to the father having never felt the ire of his lash