The Quickening

Inside me,
my baby floats like a fish,
barely a bump in my waistline,
while outside my body,
a man I don’t know
presses the blade of a knife
to my throat.

My phone
and wedding band
are now his. My arms
are wrapped around my middle,
hiding my daughter, whose flutters
I feel twitch for the first time.
Now

he is also inside me,
his fingers groping through
Darkness are so close to where
she flips and spins.
His knife cuts through the outer
layer of my skin—oh, let
me keep breathing.

Let the oxygen
from my lungs surge through my blood
into hers. May I live, so she will also
live. May she grow within me,
emerge from me. May she suck breath
into her own lungs through her own nostrils
and wail

into the coldness of the world.