Peak Child

Some baby recently
Or soon, by tomorrow,
Will live a quiet life,

Short or long, probably
Unremarkably, as
The peak child, unremarked,

Since it’s impossible—
Would be in retrospect
Even—to say which birth

Marked the exact apex
Of the curve when there were
More children drawing breath

On Earth than at any
Time before or after.
Wouldn’t you like to know,

If only for yourself,
You were that precise child,
You yourself, all your life?