Then I'll Begin

I was conceived on a dustbin, while old ha'pennies rolled in the dark arcades, horses came in for betting men, and a woman with her eye on the main chance opened a book for how long the whole affair would last.
It was the night of the eclipse. The full moon hid her face behind a fan of brushed silk and out I fell from him into her. It was something like chasm, something like fulfilment. Sequins popped in the sky,  rude streamers unfurled from the mouths of the angels,  and the music-hall pageantry of the stars winked and made slow applause at my soiled beginnings.
It is of no matter. There are in this world blind babies wrapped in banana leaves, and odd man-shaped things dropped on forest floors. Where the child lies hid changes from one moment to the next. Here she is crawling under a patchwork quilt. Here she is creeping under the lid of a grand piano stranded on the stony beach. Temperament may play a part, but so too do circumstance and company. A dustbin lid rolled, like a cymbal, crashing out the news of my arrival.
I was born to a child-hearted woman, enamored of old 78 vinyl records and men in fedoras with knives in their socks. With delectable symmetry, once again there was a lunar eclipse. A coin flipped in the sky's palm and myself was unleashed. A thumb brushed away a tear, memories blurred, like some sort of colouring-in porn. The blushing moon rented us for her darlings, a spire glowed gold on a country church, Godmothers counted their blessings. There. That is all there was to it.

The copyright of this post belongs to Claire Steele