165
Sonnets From Other Lives: Nina

The infant’s bawling has gone existential.
It’s erupting out of every molecule
of her being as though the essential
thread connecting her to life had cruel-
ly & agonizingly been frayed
into snake-like hyper sensitized neurons--
each screaming outrage at her budding brain.
Poor thing. She hasn’t been in this life long
enough to know her awful discontent
will--like an ear-wormed song--be played in
the background of a lifetime spent
muddling through existence. Then again,
let’s not dwell on that. Come child & rest
your aging soul against your mother’s breast