Fetal Christmas

By my earliest December – more than four months
in the womb, evolving toward and through
the solstice – one-hundred-thirty-something days
before my birth would burst in May – my ears had
fully hatched – sounds began to play. What marvels

they would bring! For through those apertures
and past the densities of waxy fetal buffering
and amniotic fluid, through the muscular enclosing
universe of uterus, I surely heard my father in
his ringing tenor sing: “Glory to the newborn king.”



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