Barbed silk strands, like
Deadly Ghent lace, spun
To support an ugly
Bulbous body, poised
Demonic deformed hand
Somehow camouflaged
With ninja stillness,
Unseen in plain sight

I carry my son
Past this unwalled prison,
Where new inmates wait
To be sentenced, death
By misadventure
It’s beauty beckons
Shimmering like fire,
Belying murderous intention

His hand reaches out
Wanting to touch, explore
I cannot persuade
His eyes to see, anything
But beauty, mystery
Anymore than I
Can warn the spiders
Next prey to beware.

I was not welcome at Hostel Neonate.
Thankfully, this was not a womb with a view. The proprietor, my young, ***** mother, had attempted a swan dive from the staircase of the two story Beantown walkup.  But she failed to stick the landing and I made my debut a month later.  

August 4, 1967, a cataclysmic requiem for the Haight Ashbury dream.  My birth, like that of so many others,  would come to signify the beginning of the end of the counter culture notion of making love, not war.  Free love was no longer free for girls like my mother, and it would never be free for me.  To be continued...