AN INFINITESIMAL LIFE IN REVERSE

Marah Hoffman

You’re not mine anymore.

You’re gravity’s,

tumbling towards the tile

at heart-squeezing speed.

I name you Baby Yellow,

kiss the air above your head

skull fragile as a potato chip.

Mr. Smith places you in my clumsy sixth grade hands

“Do not drop them. They won’t survive the fall.”

You’re wet with new life.

Eyes halting,

round black beads sparkling

with the reflection of my face.

We hear a microscopic crack and sprint to the incubators,

leaving fluttering worksheets in our wake.

You’re crammed and claustrophobic,

beginning to witness what lives beyond your shell.

You’re a thread of blood,

snuggled in a mustard oval.

I must define the word embryo.

Mr. Smith instructs us to sketch the lifeless eggs,

promising the still, white stone of your beginning

will metamorphose into something magnificent.