There would have been a tear
and pain and blood –
and fear: the firstborn is always
a worry.
Two-fifty thousand women die this
way
each year: two-fifty thousand
neonates
of tetanus from dung on the cord.
Lord. So many dreams end in death …
And how would they have washed him
or was he swaddled covered in the
cream
that saved his skin in the
water-world?
Survival of the fittest
but for what?
The breast for now
but the astrologers
who read his star
brought myrrh
knowing cross and manger
to be cut from the same wood.
