My mother kept a book for each of us.
She pasted pictures, smudged blue ink
in the shape of hands and feet.
She tucked clippings between the pages
from when the delivery boy
deftly pitched a folded projectile
onto the porch before breakfast.
 
When Mom put her affairs in order,
she delivered boxes to our doorsteps.
She saved everything that was not a biohazard.
Today, parents save bits of umbilical as relics
rather than burying them under a full moon,
an offering to the she-god. 
 
All the mess from my birth was incinerated
in the basement of Baptist Hospital
That burned, then floodedthen burned again
until no ashes remained.
 
But nothing could fill in
the blank spaces at the end of my book,
not even Mom’s careful listing of
the first day I held up my head,
first day I rolled over,
first meal of peas and carrots
served from a Gerber’s jar,
 
except for some crayon scribbles
of orange and blue and red.