What swords were lifted,
allegiances sworn by Holy Mothers
to allow this safe passage.
To shift this weight from humbled feet, from holding this weary want.

After months, years, time held hostage, whispering warm mercies.
To wake and find them bestowed upon me, upon we.
Oh Baby, what a sign to receive.
In this unexpected reception.
After endless evenings wailing my wet want, pleading escape from an aching womb.
Whisper chanting exorcisms to ovaries.
Here you are unfurling.
Woven with oak, bone, soft swaths of blanket so delicately sewn by mothers before me. A warm pearl cradled within a half shell of blood broth, bone bare in love’s loss. The weight of it all has nearly taken me, washed my battered young body ashore on the banks of another time.

But not now Baby. Not with the strength of your seed body shining through. Lanterns lit forth into the thick dusk
by a long lineage of surviving sisters.
So steady armor to breast.
Sink oars deep in shifting waters. We’re paddling against the current now. Me and you.