From out that ever tighter liquid nest
the fetus learns the shock of life apart:
A single human separate from the rest,
no longer tuning to her mother’s heart.
That neonatal ego screams in clear.
The pain she feels she thinks the planet shares.
And as the days are learned and disappear,
the infant self discovers no one cares
as much as she about her special needs;
the thing that makes a self is hers alone.
Her journey through her life of course proceeds,
she differentiates, in shape and tone,
herself from others and herself from self,
until as teenager she’s double-souled,
observing from a sort of psychic shelf
her passions and her moods near uncontrolled.
(Her mental eye positioned in the air
an inch above her shoulder, testifies
to her embarrassment, self-conscious care,
the drive to party harder when she cries.)
The infant self assumes herself is core,
a decade later splits herself in two,
but let that self endure another score
and more, expand, adopt a broader view,
till fiftyish, fatigued and growing free,
her selves may integrate in harmony.