My father said it is impossible to
forget my birthday because
it was the same day a favorite
uncle died. I was born in
the morning, he died in the evening,
my birth, his clarion call
to heaven.
But on the next dinner, my aunt
tells it different. Said the uncle
died first in the morning and I
was born in the evening. There are
inevitable lies in this poem
but I have no use of these stories
anyway. I haven’t celebrated
birthdays half my life.
Somewhere, right now, a child
is born. At the same time,
a child dies. From an unavoidable
disease, from a shrapnel, from
a rogue bullet. We do not
ask when one life ends and
when one begins. We do not think
about these things. Over dinner.
We prefer to talk about the weather,
about work, about an increasing
salary—the in-between events
of two breaths.