In the Fetus Museum

White, incorruptible, a slip of moon
filming the reed-bordered waters of a pond,
he sits, or rather slumps, against the glass.
He’s in no hurry. The world is here,

now and then it drags up an agonized eye
to plead with him—Mahavir, tiny Nero.
Gently, almost wincing, he smiles
as though waiting for me to finish my sentence.

Unborn. A door through which possibility
never walked. Flute no one ever played.
Once his cells were assembling their lace,
his mother was blinking into the sunlight.

Perhaps his invitation was lost in the mail,
though perhaps it’s just as well. After all,
he’s not missing much—except everything.
The inventions of lust, the pageantry of what.