Midwife

That first iced-in year your widowhood endured
New Hampshire's longest nights and Oregon's
longest days. You learned from the foxes
to slip along the forest's shadow edge
at dusk, nose your way into a root-bound burrow,
and lick your wounds. You learned to guard
your half-orphaned child both from your dreams
and from your waking. The mothering was
your survival but you had an instinct for damage, too.

There came the bruising year of circular arguments,
the shattering year of fists through windowpanes
in a cramped apartment on the Rue Saint Jacques,
the many years of your drowning and your slow
ascents to thinner air only to break the ice
and drown again..

Today is a gift. You draw the curtains,
sit quietly nearby but not too close. Your touch
is light and sure. You are waiting for a miracle
that always comes.