Womb Full of Stars
Your mother and I talked about you
a lot on those nights.
Your kicks,
who you looked like in your ultrasound photos,
your nausea-inducing antics.
But mostly we talked about
lengths and heights and widths and sizes.
The dimensions of a life,
expressed in
school names, book titles,
callings (never just jobs),
dreams that would grow with you,
things dared,
places we’d see through your eyes,
people, passing or staying,
enemies you’d be big enough for,
hearts you’d break or be denied,
a will that can withstand the world.
Maybe you slept through it all,
or maybe you had your ear pressed to the wall
of your little bedroom,
eavesdropping.
I like to think that our words,
lamp-lit,
somehow drifted their way down to you,
and, finding you asleep,
shushed themselves,
hovered,
incandescent and watchful.
So that, whenever you’re
fighting your battles in the years to come
and feeling
lost in the shadows, or
tired from always standing on tiptoes
and not quite reaching high enough,
you can lift your gaze
to the twinkling sky,
and remember
you once slept
under a blessing of stars.
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