Today's poem is by Keith Ekiss

Infant Phrenology
       

Hello, world. Hello, animal.
Here's the real undinal vast belly:
fortuneteller's ball concealing
our future: womb-stranger.
The bundle, the bun, the solved equation.
The medicine, the talcum, the miconium.
Mind the fontanel. The smallest hand
built for your hand. The magic number
turning the couplet into three, solid
as the legs of a milking stool.
Birth prepares a face for the breast:
nose pushed up, tongue untied,
testing your weather for a nipple.
His mouth cries and just like that
it's laughter. Soundings meant
for you alone to hear. Baby things.
The songs we never thought we'd sing.

Copyright © 2025 Keith Ekiss All rights reserved
from Burial Fragments
Gunpowder Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission