Alicia Jo Rabins
Not the eye hanging from the window, concentric circles of blue and white.
Not the beer bottle standing at attention.
Not the baby inside you.
Not the midwife with her capable broad ass.
Not your mother your father your husband your first lover.
Not me reader.
Nor god.
Not the life insurance policy you bought last year
although its statement arrives in the mail
eleven days before you are due to give birth
as if to say you are no longer the person you were a year ago
we were betting against your death but
congratulations.
Not the check in the mail.
Not even the check in the mail.
Nor the baby who moves inside you now
rubbing the back of his head against your organs
as if to say you are the person you have always been
you have been born before and soon you will again
so congratulations mother.
Congratulations son.
Congratulations for what you know
to be true, that what you are missing
you contain, that you can give it back
to yourself and that I, too,
contain everything I need
in my mysterious stellar
bundle of body and breath.