White-coats, inured in gloves and gauze,
Anointed arbiters of life and breath,
Command the place and hour of my coming,
And the manner, laboured or induced -
My mother drugged to their decisive power -
And I thus, acquiescent, setting forth
At break of waters’-day; sightless as yet,
Under the arc-lights and the nurses’ bustle.
Cut the chord, eject the afterbirth;
What? No tears? Slap hard. The screams of birth
Are music to the universal ear:
Mewling and puking we must come to light
Millennial ritual and textbook alike
So ordain it as the price of life.
But to where, on this chance-tormented earth?
The flowered meadows and the killing fields
Are indiscriminately apportioned.
God! Father! Protect me, though you murder
Others, or stand by, patient as a predator.
No. Mother. You, though smiling now
And wearily obeisant, alone
Can wrap me in the billow of your skirts,
Give me refuge from the attendant pain
Of this my presence among multitudes
Ever ready to call (should I prove a boy):
“Off with his head. Such protuberances
Offend alike against the laws of God
And hygiene!” Torn innocence escorts
My moans, puny as the wind
Against the dark purposes of humanity.

She renders me to Caesar; for no choice
Exists; that lonely protest being my voice.