This is how I was born:

lifted out of a wound,

crying a solo.

 

Four years later,

tiny index finger learns to pull,

like an archer, on the string,

tension held with thumb,

 

pitch held by pinky tip.

Partitas played lonely in a wood-floored room

while it rained for days and days

 

without a name.

Notes dripped down

floor to ceiling windows, a poem printed

on the paper of each cigarette

 

my mother smoked at the typewriter.

Layer after layer of skin transforms

into calluses: core, mantle, crust.

 

Bow precise as a protractor.

Red star on my chin

proves devotion.

 

My left hand a scale, fingertips

ground glass, wallpaper sheet music,

right elbow standing in

for gravity.