A Woman Addresses her Unborn Child

 after Chitra Divakaruni

I lie about you.
Under my naked breast

you breathe liquid.  I am filled
with eyes, waiting

for your cry:
they believe you are his.

I lie about you.
In milky ink, shriveled
with tithing of pen

strangling my throat;
your chosen name, Jadon,

points, seeps the echo

of sin from my body.

I lie about you,

wanting for you to be,

wishing for us to be

his.


*Jadon—Hebrew name meaning, “he will judge.”