Poem for My Unborn Boy at the Ballard Locks One Day Before His Birth

Dorian, the second mode, the second child. Nothing can prepare me for you. I wait for
autumn to turn gold. The canal is terraced like the geometry of a spider web. A train in
the distance sings the lonely, yet familiar songs of my youth. Soo Line. Milwaukee Road.

                                                                                             I imagine your life’s
journey, the ways you will grow under the moon’s future, as the train disrupts my vision
of time. 

                                                                                                                     White gulls
catch the salmon that swirl in evanescence as the lock doors open. My body waters rise
to meet your needs. You are hungry. I feed you bread and butter from the outside—
yesterday walking stairs from the bakery—today walking stairs to the lock-master’s cottage.

                                                                     My body heats up like an engine, a large
heavy locomotive. I may be at the end of a line or at a convergence. I don’t know yet
who I will be with you. You have shifted up a pitch, modulated to D.

Done with the inside, you press your way out.

I whistle, I shout, I scream.