Baptism.

Baptism

   You sleep deeply in your mother's arms
   in the front row of the small stone church
   far and not far from the center of things.
   In a few minutes cold water will strike
   your forehead and disturb your slumber.

   This jolt welcomes you to the company
   of children pulling at parental sleeves
   in hope of early exit for the game,
   the teenager with curled lip, one half
   the couple who will file for divorce
   tomorrow, the father of three who has lost
   his job, and the old woman in the back pew
   who needs to sit near the bathroom.

   Your unsuspecting parents sit
   under the window where the angel
   chases Adam and Eve out
   of the ruby and emerald garden
   and down a stony path. No doubt
   this holy water is meant to smooth
   the stones, carpet them with saving moss,
   and provide drinking fountains along the way.

   It may.
   It does enlist companions on the path.
   But the water falls on flesh
   so willfulness will turn
   and turn again
   to tread on the original and jagged pain.