Air Encephalogram for a baby

Small in a vast mechanical womb

This babe swings upside down

Swathed in green cloth,

For an air encephalogram.

That small square of infant back

Is the only proof

That beneath the green swaddling

Beats a human heart.

Yet where the bubbles island

On the X-ray screens,

Gloved hands may chart

The next ten years.

Westerly, 1991