Black Box

My newborn wasn’t born human
she was smarter than that
stark bald and
inscrutable
her swaddle a loose toga
wrapping up
an ancient
off-world
sage

Her gaze unnerved me
moonlike mien
from fathomless deep space
crash landed
quite by accident
into my gooseflesh arms

A cosmic joke that I
a frightened
leaking
bag of flesh
looked after her
enlightened alien
who‘d just been swimming
with whales

My baby wasn’t human
when she howled
like prey
to curl my toes
and send me racing
quaking
just to find her
staring blithely into space
placid as a god

She’d wake up
late night
outraged
her body seizure-stiff
and when I’d scoop her up
her fingers reached
out through the black
to find my face
and scan it
back and forth
like a frantic
windshield wiper
or some senseless
gear-jammed
metronome
a blind
automaton

This wizened argonaut
immortal
trailing clouds of distant glory
did gradually subside
to my relief
and grief
into more human form

Making noises more familiar
soft sweet falsetto
kitten sighs
and turning jowly
like my Grampy
coming into her
inheritance of cheeks
accepting the mantle
of our round-faced lineage
her customs stamp into
this family of man
this half-baked
great ape
species

But sometimes I still see
through her
to that patient
shipwrecked
tzadick
fresh off the
astral plane
and humoring us
by shuffling on a
pigtailed
mortal
coil