by Tom Holmes
You were delivered,
and you were cradled
between two latex gloves.
You were handed to me
and curled in my neck
like you wanted to reenter.
I don’t know if there’s one
direction either way.
You haven’t even cried.
You haven’t crawled
through grass or burrowed
into earth. The morning bird
is due. It’s in the paperwork.
You will have my roots
as you tilt to a rising sun.
There are two gardens for you.
You will feed off their decay
and blooms. You will live
a life in the rubber edging
between the two. You will find
hesitance to care for either one.
Tom Holmes is the founding editor of Redactions: Poetry & Poetics, and author of three full-length collections of poetry, most recently The Cave, which won The Bitter Oleander Press Library of Poetry Book Award for 2013, as well as four chapbooks. His writings about wine, poetry book reviews, and poetry can be found at his blog, The Line Break. Follow him on Twitter: @TheLineBreak
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