The Unborn

Before anything else she remembered the darkness
as if the stars, like giant spider eyes,
blinked out,
a thousand years ago, so that
at that very moment,
standing alone on the slippery grass
she would be in darkness.
And cold.
We mustn’t forget the cold.

A moment where the gods,
all hushed up, quit bickering,
and nodded together in unison,

at this woman,
staring unflinching
in her hands an ink pot
in the pot, the fetus,
lidless
the purple bloated smear across its mouth
her dialogue writ
in words she doesn’t understand anymore.