The child grew in her
like a love song.
What grows inside her now
will never be born.
She sits watching her daughter,
miraculous,
remembering how the girl
quickened in her womb.
How the days were measured
by the earth movement of her soul,
bulging like a tide
within her belly,
mysterious, holy, close.
Now she prays the cells do not divide.
That she not be the host
of their random chaos.
For there will be
no bright beloved face,
no smile that lightens
the dreariest fatigue,
no voice
that spills its treasure
into her heart with every syllable.
The inert mass has no voice,
no smile,
no face.
It lives senselessly without purpose.
Death in the protoplasm
of her breasts and spine.