Umbilical-Collage by Miya Turnbull

There you are
with your comma-shaped body
your ball-point eyes
your scotch tape skin
your paperclip limbs
I put a yellow sticky-note on my belly
our first game of Hide
and Seek

Don’t peek, little baby

You’re not ready for this world yet
I haven’t bought you
any onesies
You’d been chilly, naked baby
so float on
like a little mitochondrion
double membrane
liquid buffer
I wish I had
a periscope
to see in your cristae space
to crawl into your matrix

Someday soon
I’ll see you
grow right before my eyes
like the sea monkeys
at the back of the Archies
so happy, families
smiling bravely
with their crowns or
three-pronged heads
“So eager to please, they can even be trained”
the ad said.

I’d also like
the X-ray vision

glasses, to see through me
straight to you.