Hindsight

After the Prince

Now, hindsight has come:

Once passions in the blood
Have congealed,

Once I have been wheeled,
Ceaselessly wheeled
Through hospital corridors, fluorescence
Overtaking disinfectant days, filled with IV drips
Dripping, slipping down into the blood
Pumping, burning the inner skin,

Once salt and citrus pooled

in the gash of my open heart,

For the loss of love,

Once dilation contracted
And eyes could see
Up nostrils of objective men
When the needles were cut
Like umbilical cords,

Once the fetus sleep, etherized
On the tabletop, broke, seeped
Each cell into consciousness
And the pain of being born returned again,

Once the paper dress ripped clean away,
Crumbled in some urine stained corner,
Was replaced by my pocketless rags,
Dirty, dew stained at the hem,

Once I was elbow carried into
The sun, bright as the side of an eye,
And heaped on the bus bench,
Told to wait for the uptown.

This is when hindsight arrived:

Pinned beneath the gawking
Cadaver of the sky, your picture fell
From a stitch in my cuff, face up.

And I squinted to see.
And I finally saw.
Saw your smile was crooked.
Your smile was crooked after all.