Must be a boy. For in her ignorance the mother did not yet know that inside her belly there was not one but two. Flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood and yet not one but two. And yet not two equally, for the demon brother was the larger of the two, with but a single wish to suck suck suck into his being the life of the other, the smaller brother, all of the nourishment of the liquidy-dark womb, to suck into himself the smaller brother about whom he was hunched as if embracing him, belly to curving spine and the forehead of the demon brother pressed against the soft bone of the back of the head of the smaller brother. The demon brother had no speech but was purely appetite Why there be this other here-this thing! Why this, when there is me! There is me, me, me, there is only me. The demon brother did not yet feed by mouth, had not yet sharp teeth to tear, chew, devour and so could not swallow up the smaller brother into his gut, and so the smaller brother survived inside the swollen belly where the beat beat beat of the great heart pumped life blindly and in ignorance until the very hour of the birth, when the demon brother forced his way out of the womb headfirst, a diver, a plunger, eager for oxygen, thrusting, squawling, struggling to declare himself, drew his first breath in a shudder of astonishment and began to bawl loudly, hungrily, kicking his small legs, flailing his small arms, a furious purple-flushed face, half-shut glaring eyes, strands of startlingly dark and coarse hair on the flushed infant scalp A boy! Nine-pound boy! A beautiful-perfect-boy! Swathed in mother’s oily blood, glistening like pent-up fire, a sharp scream and frenzied kicking as the umbilical cord attached to his navel was deftly severed.