To a Newborn for Jonathan David Markowitz, By Amy Gerstler

When we first met

a week ago, you were

two days old,

twenty inches long,

swaddled like a sultan,

weighing in at seven

pounds. You looked

like a furious skinned

kitten. You looked cooked.

Roasted, to be precise.

I assume you’ll cool.

I liked you enormously, due

to my affinity for anyone

pissed-off, particularly

infants. The tuft of black

hair on your head seemed

magnetized. Fine as coal

dust, it stands straight

up, like a smoky flame,

a rooster’s comb, a hand

raised for permission to speak.

I’d like a piece of your mind

tout de suite , so hurry

and learn English. You have

the aura of someone who’s

just run a great distance.

When I see your soft,

severe, inebriated

looking face, I become

unreasonably happy,

tearful (as you often are),

and feel completely at sea.

You seem to like to keep

only one eye open at a time,

as you twist in your mother’s

arms and punch the air,

which makes you look cocky.

I own earrings bigger

than your fists. We adults

take turns smelling your

powder-scented head.

Protector of all beings,

twirling your awful lasso

of snakes, look down

on this new creature

the color of blood,

with his constantly empty stomach

and his expression as

sour as onions sauteed in aged

yak butter. Voracious deity,

keep one of your thousand eyes

on this male baby as he picks

his way among mournful trees

and flowering plants that form

the forest of his circumstances

and family. Help him find

his true root. Do this at the most

humble request of one so terrified

(O, trailblazer, lord of conflicting emotions, teacher of naked ascetics, traveler ever arriving), that the list of her fears would

weary to death anyone reading this

sentence, were she to mention them

all.

Unpublished. Gerstler’s new collection, “Nerve Storm,” is just out this month from Viking Penguin.