Then one day the gray rags vanish
and the sweet wind rattles her sash.
Her secrets bloom hot. I’m wild for everything.
My body is a golden armor around my unborn child’s body,
and I’ll die happy, here on the ground.
I bend to the mixture of dirt, chopped hay,
grindings of coffee from our dark winter breakfasts.
I spoon the rich substance around the acid-loving shrubs
I tear down last year’s drunken vines,
pull the black rug off the bed of asparagus
and lie there, knowing by June I’ll push the baby out
as easily as seed wings fold back from the cotyledon.
I see the first leaf already, the veined tongue
rigid between the thighs of the runner beans.