Cassandra on Her Birth Day
by John Kendall Hawkins
Your mother cried through the laughing gas-
cried biblically, "Get it out of me!"
And you flooded out, long-headed, alien blue,
jaundiced in mucous and blood, new eyes
wide open to a chilly ward, strangers
beaming at you, like cannibals, in joy.
"Overcooked," the midwife chimed. Not a boy,
we knew, when Carla shrieked, "A niece!"
We are dangerous with our love,
we need you more than you need us,
and we'll get around to molding you
to our shape-shifting greed. But for now,
we'll let you be: urgent and freed,
and piping your fair, obstreperous tune.
'I am, I am, I am, I am, I am.'
Already raging against the dying
of the rumored, proverbial light.
It doesn't get any better than this.
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