Rebirth

There's something vaguely infantile
about the way I love the contrast when I step outside:
warm, stale, exhale-heavy air, caving in with the door
opening to give way to the crisp wall of chill rushing in
to revitalize the dark heavy space. The old woman
at the guard's desk stirs her bones, shifts. She's past
the era where she'd welcome the smack to her cheeks,
long forgotten the newborn's love of sharp divides.
I step out of the wooden womb into the afternoon sun.
 
There's something somewhat neonate
about the way I love the definition of the shadows
when I step onto the sidewalk: decisive lines
across the street where the apartments' marks end
and the sun has regained control.
The baby rattles his mother's keys; so, too, I clatter the bars
of the iron fence beside me. To many, restriction—
for myself, liberation, every sharp sound cutting me out
of the oxygen-depleted torpor of recycled indoor air.
 
There's something approaching a newborn cry
bursting from my soul as the sun attacks me:
when in my cracked-plaster cell deprived of feeling, I crave it;
having paused under brilliant shades of emerald and azure
overloading all ("no wonder they're so laid back")
and golden glory days of tradition's brown and white
full of russet colors and charcoal smoke, easy laughs,
and this is how it has been, boys, and how it always will be...
Pray for me, going numb at the fingertips in this whitewashed stasis.