Birthday

What would have been perfect that day: a full sky of mammati.
Instead, as we headed west to the hospital, me pressing pain from my body,

the sky was cloudless, and clear. A haze grew around the seven o’clock sun.
Hot August, bursting with ripeness, harvesting, like my body:

a little fish, then a flippant bird, then the small slippery creature
who swam, spun, squirmed in my body.

Then bursting water, bursting blood, stars of pain, pressing pain, clenching pain,
then a baby, from my body–

thirsty nursling.
Milk bloomed on my body.

A year later, a maple seed spun into our front lawn is pressed stickily to my palm.
You grew, little visitor, said Mama–a question–then crawled away from my body.