by Robert James Berry

In hard darkness
time has begun.
I am before names
before sleep had dreams.
I swell into a shrinking country
am land, in a red sea.

I have needle bones
like a silver river fish
being skeletal, all
eye socket and
knuckly skull, a
conjuring trick of creation.

My handspan is immense --
I hear my blood hum
like a tuning fork.
Commemorate how my
toes bloom.

No chart maps what I think:
I think my amniotic ocean
is the colour of roses.

I need no words to
dig a gangly limb
into the crimson sky,
lounge on an upholstery
of blood.

I am architecture
splendidly angles,
my stomach a blip of brine.

When I am born
I shall smell so clean,
like strawberries.