Born at Last by Fabrice Poussin

Greetings to a world I abandon
for today I shed a strangest fate

Bewildered by the statue I contemplate
I have pondered enough with its parts. 

Once I kicked a ball across a field 
rolled in a warm mud to play a role
in this comedy of errors never rehearsed 

Now I take the wrapping off to reveal a gift
a present so long kept a frigid secret
blue with the marks of a great many beatings. 

The journey has endured 
it is now time to consider a truth
beneath the pale shroud of this dawn. 

There is no sense in this  flesh
little credence to see in the bones 
but a message read at last. 

Greetings to a world I abandon
as it once wanted me to be. 

This new awakening as a birth
propelled by a twirling wave 
I am free to become all and this I am. 

A portrait in the hazy glass smiles
receptacle of mysteries answered
it is he and it is she one it is simply I. 

Fabrice Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications.