Matthew Sumpter
-W. S. Merwin
Today I protest
my ignorance of vernix
in knee crooks the umbilical cord a blood-woven rope the Be firm
the doctor says before I sever it with scissors
I upbraid myself
for knowing for so long nothing of a body
filigreed in white mucus
and sleeping now under heat lamps
in a room where ugliness does not become
less ugly but more lovely in its ugliness
I am shouting down the old distinctions
holding up the old world and protesting it with the words we lack
for pre-color newborn irises the placenta
my wife delivers that opens like a prayer book
the feel of hair matted into curls with amnios
I protest my old self who lived
three decades without this moment
language can't parse
no matter how often I bring down its ax
stay and I will tell you about skin halfway between
beetroots and cream I will tell you
about a mercifully suctioned throat
and the cry that follows tell you a story owned by no one
except this cry and these people
child and mother
their voices like castaways the moment each one doesn't drown