I Was Born One Day I was born one day when God was ill Now there is a hole in my metaphysical Air no one could touch, no one could Hope to touch for fear of repetition, The kind of slave to the beginning Of heartbeats that blister into memory Time after time after time. I was born one day when God was ill. Yet neither Fate nor Cupid cast glances at me, Remarked or smiled at Christ's dead body, Like me. Now I have become invisible, an embarrassment Of sorts that leads nowhere, nothing worth Saving, nothing worth taking as demons stumble Out of the door with gifts for themselves From my home, from the children's home Who to me mean the world for I was born One day when God was ill. And you did not ask after my health And you found yourself riches in the house Where I have not been for seven weeks now, The doctors saying that all is well I should be home for tea, my wrists Strapped. Yet worst of all is the sad sight of apprehension In your eyes, the fallen look of reluctance That somehow gets the better of you, Trailing through midnights backwards As I recall your youth, my own youth Once loving and loved but now changed Into a kind of pain that delivers pains To the heart, the heart and not the soul, Nothing but declamatory memories to get Me through the night, those, and as I drift To sleep Beethoven, I walking through Some other skies or explosions, The first black hole sucking in Canada Huge as ephemeral gods ready to devour As I was born one day when God Was seriously ill. John Cornwall