The Morning Child

The color of a bruise spreads across the eastern sky
It is the Mongolian spot of morning being born
It trembles, rustles, and wriggles its way upward
Crawling with all the energy of a newborn’s buttocks
On the opposite side, the morning child regrets
Kicking open the double doors of the birth canal
It is crying about being carried
Down this river of amniotic fluid
After the afterbirth, the mother
Is an albino snake shaking her tail
Knowing there is not a trace of wind
On the seam suturing morning to night
Soothingly she sticks out her tongue
Awkwardly bends her back and dives down
The path of flowers that have not bloomed
At the bottom, stamens that could not stand the sun
Suck up slippery nourishment
Now is the time they shake loose their silver pollen
So the mother forgets all about the morning child
Wets her eyes and scales enough to crawl away
Then copulates with the flowers, going down the path to night
For both mother and child, the womb is the cast-off skin of a snake

The color of a bruise spreads cross the eastern sky
It is the Mongolian spot of morning
It is the bruise on the sky which reveals
The loneliness born upon it
It trembles, rustles, and wriggles its way upward
With all the energy of a first attempt to crawl
There is no choice but to crawl upward
After swallowing to my innermost depths
The head lice mother left as a keepsake
My umbilical cord, which holds mother dangling in space
Grows thin as it turns and – oh no! – gets ready to snap
No, perhaps I am the one left dangling upside-down
And then, the cord breaks
Mother falls into continuous night
I fall into a morning that may continue but may not—a straight line
And then
I have no choice but to crawl
For both mother and child, the womb is the cast-off skin of a snake

And the color of the bruise spreads
One will faintly see the blood blisters
On the morning child’s hands and feet
Rip open and illuminate
The eastern sky

Translation by Jeffrey Angles

Note: Children in many East Asian countries are often born with a large bluish spot on their backsides known as a “Mongolian spot.”  In almost all cases, the spot fades away by the time the child turns seven or eight years old.