After the Fall

I gasp, sometimes, from the hard kicks of the baby within and find, especially in the middle of the night: my hips don't want to bear our weight to the bathroom. I crank a little dial and stab dutifully into my inner thigh but often feel lightheaded or weak, nonetheless, for reasons barely (or un) detectable in my blood.

I study a spiderweb dangling from a door frame and consider: if a creature of industry exists in this house, she ignores webs, dust, fingerprints, spots. Or does she simply busy herself in some other corner, making something from nothing?

My neighbor hisses that I should get over myself because she, too, has suffered, and some things (and people) aren't meant to be, and some are, and everything works out in the end; there's no good reason not to pick up the phone.

She's right; I don't know of a mother (or any woman, for that matter) who hasn't suffered. We're each of us left holding an apple with bites taken out of it, and don't so many men--even if they don't want to admit it--gloat, disregard, disrespect, undermine?

We women should forge bonds of love, and that's where both my neighbor and I are wrong.

Admittedly, I tire of trying to make something pleasant of that which threatens to rot: foxes and lamps from brightly colored leaves, pies from apples, lanterns from pumpkins, intimacy from brokenness.

Trust me on this: what a strange time to bring new life into the world; everything around me is so very busy dying.