Auspicious hour
This night swims with ghosts And yet it is already morning. This auspicious hour before the dawn feels ripe and pregnant for thieves and murderers witches — the kind with warts and I am no witch. Thief, you are you steal into my dreams Night stalker Carrying with you all your baggage of the past and the future, describe to me your wedding meal how it went smoothly down the gullet the steak, the cupcake the flesh around my fingers ragged for something ugly churns beneath the white, smooth snow seeping through in places. Let's throw snowballs at it Hoping it won't come back again, mold and mushroom beneath new layers of plaster painted stylishly. There is no green growth for months now, I've stared at the stump. I've had operations and grafts faith healers and three ring circus leaders have chanted nonsense (expensive nonsense) over this brown, twisted place where I used to grow new things. I am sad and scared that nothing new will grow again that my soil is depleted and depleting How long have I been in this same terra cotta swaddling? There is morning light coming through black, chattering branches A blue glow that smiles and says, “And now you'll do it all over again.” I'm already living all my worst fears of motherhood without ever actually giving birth.