PREGNANT PAUSE

Inside the belly of Time

I hold my breath

not knowing

what got caught,

or what’s waiting

at the delta door,

or how deep

the shallows are.

I twist around

a pain that lives

inside like a fist,

swollen and fetal,

braided by loss,

death, and birth

strand over strand.

A voice, umbilical,

mute, sounds only

when I cut the chord

with my listening. The ocean

of the world welcomes

its river-child home.