SHAPES

I and five billion other bodies began
When single ovum was pierced by a sperm, the fated
One among 50 million starters, creating
A pulsing blob of cells, gargantuan

In appetite and protean in shape:
At first a frog’s egg mass, then fetal whorl,
Organs appear as head and limbs uncurl;
The cord is cut, we breathe–the great escape!

We’re babies, fat and climbing, greedy eaters,
Then crawlers, toddlers, walkers, runners, athrob
From cuddly to nubile to fertile, parental; then law
Of gravity, bones bending, muscles retreating.

At ninety my peers have achieved grotesqueries–
They’re spiders or obtuse angles of paunchy repose.

(46, August 21, 1992)

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