Landscape with Preterm Labor

Friday, July 15, 2022

            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.

Friday, July 15, 2022