Mother

It was too soon, she’d acted carelessly.
In a tiny collision, a seed of catastrophe
formed, a growth that might demand her life.
It didn’t seem possible, how should that joyous tide
that swept her to such heights of pleasure
have left a struggling survivor behind?
 
Her partner had been hardly more substantial
than a shadow of the night. He would, she thought,
distain responsibility, deny that he had anything
to share with her.” I thought you were being careful!”
                                                she could hear him say.
 
Much too soon. She found no store of mothering
she might draw on. The void before her too deep,
the bridge across unstable, unable to bear so great
an increase in weight. Somnambulistic, she
arranged the tiny invader’s fate. She hoped
she might afterwards awake unchanged,
that you could not be convicted for
killing what you could not see.