In April everyone began to go without.
In April, on the day of my birth, the fools
raised every hell, raised tariffs on the swath

of countries that dared pursue a more equal—
a more equal what, exactly? My birth: on the second
of the month, an equally misbegotten sequel

to the first day, I was never even meant
to be born an Aries on the millennium’s
cusp, I was intended

to exit my mother’s womb
on Independence Day,
a good gay son

I always was, morals displayed
in the shortness of my hair
or the silver alloy

necklaces, mindful, demure,
while the stanzas served their own purposes,
didn’t they—

but as I was saying there was a sea,
there was a C-section, there was a NICU
overlooking the river, there was an origin story,

there was I, there were you,
there were my grandparents on Remsen Street,
there was the respirator accruing

bacteria, there was the gene that decreed
my homosexuality, I guess, or whatever
does that, however much the world greeted

me in the cruelest April, such heavy
rain, o what pomp! o what bluster!
lang zal hij leven, lang zal hij leven,

we would sing, though my grandmother
could not muster the pitches, and here I am,
on Zoom with my family, singing for myself.