he births of love Begin issue of a stout-slung sperm, I went like clockwork till you came: unfruitful, soft-mechanic and Blind Man’s Buff. When I arrived (at nothing yet, because it was not you), a small gold sovereign of small account, ignorant of its kingdom and its currency, I took you for a subject with my little fist, banking on some notion, some credit on the unspent air, drawn in an IOU, and showed you, unborn, mine. In the end you came while I was busy, long bones slipping out up to your eyes, whose bulging shiners each bore my stamp, minted in my mewling, hand-fast game. All set then: though we knew, we had not met. While twenty years of sturdy detour 7