Ifeanyi says in his country a baby
Is It until it learns to be one of Us.
I am in my Igbo second infancy.
The coral, a quarrel, a glacier, my lungs.
The weather, the world, the book review.
Lyrical bitching. Biblical plaint.
Infant debt of attention again vetting
The news, the noise, the needs, for keeps.
It is the beginning and it is the ending
And having the heart to tell them apart.
—Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky’s autobiography, Jersey Breaks, will appear this fall from Norton.
