A Poem About a Newborn Child

A fortune teller told your his parents that the new born child was at odds with their fate, and if they raised him at home, he would be the death of them. So they understood this to mean that the baby should be cared for others, and they wrapped him in a comforter embroidered with the words ten thousand joys. Your dad's job for much of this time was cleaning out communal toilets, which consisted of holes over a cesspit. The paraffin lamp you used inside made your nostrils black with soot. Rats were a constant problem, as were lice.