l i n e s

I do not know what is responsible
for the wrinkles of my infant self,
if the air is to blame
or the shallow bath I took after emerging. perhaps
it was the water from inside my mother’s womb.
but how could I, a child of one hour,
be as wrinkled as the fleshy skin of a roasted pig? Maybe one day,
when I am eighty, I will love my lines
like the lines I was born with.

I do not know what is responsible
for etching the lines on my palms, but I am grateful.
my mother always said that deeper lines are deeper lives
and deeper lives are lives worth living.
she said to me,
I would travel far and my life would not be cut short,
but my health is a dainty being. Maybe one day,
I’ll be scraps and bones, and you’ll see my brain still alive and well
from outside my empty sockets.

* writing exercise, ENGWRT 0530