She watches her belly grow daily. Sometimes
the quake of a fetal kick topples her
from Charon's boat. More than once lapping waves
open to drag her back to darkness.
The womb has velvet walls
that muffles screams, the cornucopia
thinned to a sickle over her head,
hair and teeth fall like cut souls.
Charon pulls her from drowning,
brushes away her tears. Hades still sleeps,
he whispers silencing her lips with a damp finger.
Be proud. Some women never take this journey.
Nights she leans against death,
yearning for pomegranates she ate
from hands wrinkled by maternity
while caressing pleasures she has to give up:
Tending her mother's garden,
cigarettes and jazz past midnight,
lingeries that would not have suffered milk stains,
her obsession to read alone.
When the water finally bursts, it is Styx:
the gurgling forth of spring.
A rooster crows for dawn. Winter is over.
Somehow it soothes her to know Hades is a girl.
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