Jagged with Love

First Child, in the Womb

FIrST CHILD, In THe womB We brought him from our skins, wet and black as a spoonful of oyster, his tips of nngers, his knees, tiny round buttocks, grainy on the monitor: smaller than small, perfect as beads of wax, every syrupy portion a gift of our equinox: your white thread ofjoy, my dim, open palm. I am thinking now, after the doctors have told us the child will not live, no amniotic fluid in his purple pocket of nutrients, no kidneys, that we should not listen to their sad, sternvoices telling us to terminate. We can hope he knows us, feels us holding onto our skins again in gallant necessity, the coda of parenthood whisperinglike lips against a dark circle of blood. Our own four kidneys, strongfaces ofwater and electrolytes, push at the window of blue-black night, waiting this miracle, the kinetic art of prayer falling carefully from our mouths, my nve months of belly convex as a warm egg underyour hands. Onlythe sweet birch is honest with us, its leaves brushingthe glass near our bed, its branches are rhumb lines pointingheavenward. You kneel against me in our desperate posture and nll the soft tunnel of my body. ...