Landscape with Preterm Labor
I thought my body
a thick hearty thing, a big-
horn sheep perched in a crag
of rock, an elk
fording a snowmelt river,
a fat rattlesnake sunning
on a dusty boulder.
Today, you are no days older
than you will ever be,
little baby,
who never took a breath
but whose hummingbird
of a heart
fluttered for an hour
in the half-light of dawn
while I held you
as if in the middle
of a warm placid lake,
morning fog rising like
breath from water. New sun.
Old love. First radiance
of light.
