Unborn
Horses are galloping in my heart:
Don’t look at the time, you say,
And play some music in my ears.
I feel you breathe inside each
Of my breaths. You live inside me,
A being that will never be birthed,
A hope that will never be homed.
I hold you within the eye of every storm:
A promise kept, a chosen thing wrapped,
A hurt honed into a blade so keen
No man has bled its cut
Though every woman knows it –
Cleaving and heaving and halving.
It is enough.
I release the stampede.
But even the horses –
Sweating and tearing and screaming –
Cannot bring you forth.
I am nulliparous.