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PRAYER FOR MY GRANDSON

After the waters broke

in my brave daughter

and hormones soaked

her pelvic altar,

and the uterine nave

began to cave,

Max set about

his organised

concerted breakout.

Her walls connived

to let his body pass

from its fretting Alcatraz.

We wavered near.

So pretty, pink and neat

in eye and hand and ear,

this man, complete.

From womb-sphere, birth-pain—

a universe again.

Father and mother seed

complexity

and nipple-holding greed.

I pray that he

when hunger is understood

will turn it to some good.

Alan Marshfield

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