A Bundle of Hope - But No Joy (Poetry)

I was a newborn once — a first-born
and — as it turns out — also a last-born —
the only-born — the one chance they had
of continuing the bloodline.

All their hopes resting in six pounds or so
of human flesh that could only squall
its needs — screw its eyes up at the light
and suck on a rubber teat. So no joy.

I suspect I didn’t look much different from
the others in the cottage hospital nursery —
a small being wrinkle-faced as a walnut —
silent and furious by turn.

I expect they were disappointed then —
right from the birth — the anticlimax of
conception’s miracle — her egg his sperm
and there I was unlike either of them —

the ‘little stranger’ who grew more strange —
a child apart — a changeling —
the one they couldn’t fathom — labelled
wrong from the start.