On Our Way to the Fertility Clinic

We're up before the sun, 
disturbing the lawn's crisp
blanket of leaves as we 
drag ourselves to the car.

Our street is dark, hushed,
cold, though the day promises
to shake off its chill, blossom
into some warm October afternoon.

I have no mother and I am not
a mother. The keen prick of this
is not unlike the needle's bite 
as it enters my vein—another test.

Grief is no stranger.  I know
what it is to long for someone
you loved fiercely.  But this is new:
an ache for one who has not yet been.

The sky is black, cloudless.
I clutch a travel-mug of coffee;
my husband carries a paper bag
with drops of himself inside.

(I know darling, did I have to
mention your ejaculate in a poem?
But it was there, and so were you,
and so were the stars, impossibly bright.)