On all fours,
Crawling back to the womb,
Refastening the thin umbilical cord
to the mother who is Home:
the cradle of her angled arms,
the fullness of her breast,
in its warmth and codling comfort,
a phantom sea of rest,
as I cry cry cry
and wail and howl and scream,
all through the death-illumined nights,
tearless in my whining,
save the single droplet that breaks
from her eyes onto my pink cheek,
a solitary salt-rimmed streak
stained with memories
that render a moment in Time
gone from my mind.

Still,
something in me
cries cries cries
and wails and howls and screams
for the eternal parental hold,
for the claustrophobic womb,
armor that is tight and suffocating,
a shield from the World,
the open battlefield my natal zone,
never to return Home,
never to embrace that childlike faith,
never to exist alone.

Someday I may hear
a cry cry cry,
a scream and a howl
from my womb,
as the naïve Life I never knew
wails from its uteran tomb.

Brinn W.