As if being born were a ceremony,

we put on caps, curl dutifully

in cots, and wait: nine beats,

a pause, and three more, like

inkblots, droplets of corn chowder,

amniotc fluid on our soft

hairless skin, then loud, jazzy

tunes as we, queens and workers,

rise as one, pull the chord, spin

into blue sky beneath a squadron

of crows, telling myself

there’s no risk of bombardment

or snatching—this ecosystem

is stable, we’re already viable.
 
 
 
 

 

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KENTON K. YEE ’s poems appear (or will soon) in Kenyon Review, Threepenny Review, Cincinnati Review, I-70 Review, RHINO, Quarterly West, Plume Poetry, Grain Magazine, and Rattle, among others. A PhD in theoretical physics, Kenton taught at Columbia University. He writes from Northern California.

 

The art that appears alongside this piece is “daddy” by GRETA KOSHENINA.