Intimations of Jack
What dance is this of little limbs
Barely any flesh, but soft, along
The long bones of thigh and shin
That reach and bend and stretch
St. Vitus like in sleep or awake
With new freedom, beginning
Life's marathon and when fully
Extended a small smile of satisfaction
The release of post-uterine boundedness.

Neither Here Nor There
At the soft edge of arrival
Your eyes, brown like caramel
Made with molasses, give all
The signs of the place between
Worlds, rolling right to find the
Angel who came with you across
The breach, pausing lost in
Listening for a song perhaps,
We do not hear, a heart beat
Speeds up in proximity to hers,
Mother surrounding you but
Now with her arms, not her sea,
Your breast dimpled with its pulse
Your fingers closing as a fist
Upon an offered digit, your heels
Lifted innocent to the pinch and bite
Of mythology, crossing, crossing
Still the time you have come before
You were due to arrive, a messenger
Of your own awakening on earth,
Clear evidence that life begins
Before birth but in time out of mind
Measured by some chemistry of
Mystery, not some clock of mankind.


Jack’s Eyes

If the eyes are a window
Into the soul; these new
Brown port holes take inflow
Now; the soul is drinking
In the spirits of those who
Smile upon it, like the camera
Openings its iris in a new culture;
May only loving looks fall
Upon your lens, curiosity,
Optimism, wishes for well-being
Fill the vessel open to the world.