It is said that at birth, I was cold to the touch.
A heat lamp was requisitioned and grandmother
was called in to begin the immediate and necessary
work of knitting a sweater for her pale blue grandson.
It is also said that mother would refuse
to hold me. It was apparent she had
no calling for all matters, maternal.
An intervention was staged and at
its conclusion it was determined that because
of an unusually cold September, a vitamin deficiency was
to blame for mother’s repulsion towards her translucent,
needy child.
She was put on a strict diet of beet soup, yogurt
and bread; all who cared were asked to pray.
Some weeks later, in the early morning hours
I would be discovered suckling on mother’s breast
while she sang a lullaby first sung millennia ago.
By mothers huddled under the great dome of stars as a
fire burned and fathers marched towards an
unknown and shivering prey.
