Embryo

Nothing living doesn’t grow –

although sometimes in certain beings

it would seem the aim of growth is to maintain

at all costs the complete appearance

of the first small unity that through

the arcane mysteries of replicating cells

it could attain: the embryo – potential kept

right at the brink of its development

but held back held back held back

from expanding: a floor of being, nothing more;

like fish eggs disallowed the sea. He was

such a being: all his energy poured involutedly

into a repetition of its own constricted form

to keep it gleaming, wet and seeming,

always seeming new – a semblance

of a promise. Inside the soul stayed hidden

somewhere as if drugged asleep. Slick surfaces

sealed in a blunt undifferentiated deep.

It’s true, he could walk to and fro.

He wasn’t fun to talk to, though.

.