"They enter the new world naked, cold, uncertain of all save that they enter.” —W.C. Williams, Spring and All
I imagined The village welcoming Ceremony would be Like the farewell Eleven years before When I was all of four, But who knows what That was like when I remembered nothing Of what had come before, Let alone my mother And the midwife bringing Me into a new world naked In the middle of March On a hard-packed earthen floor.