now that my husband and his brother place me on my back on straw soaking blood, the wagon rattles the horses’ gait drums into my back hooves undoing over stone follow the pain until I lose its track agony tamped down into the pressure of a fingertip The baby wrapped in a quilt, grown cold, the heat of me fading she is face down on a pillow of my clothes no need to give her air She was born in the veil a miracle that did not save her. Sometimes I float above us the sheet around me, out behind me fluttering in the pure air the landscape grass brown against purple-shadowed hills, the color so sweet it tastes like flowering grass the horses seem to stand still and there are no storms coming. one or two clouds, white and transparent scudding away
my husband twists to look at me slows and turns for home where my son plays in the dirt with a ball he’s made from a tattered nightshirt He’s young enough to be singing about nothing hair almost white legs scuffed with dirt the chickens have scratched up my aunt watching him from the doorway his father back before sunset clouded in dust My son has not seen rain he can remember he’s always thirsty The sky reflects off his hair I feel the warmth rise, taking every bead of moisture There is not water enough to prepare me and the baby, barely enough to drink
His next mother will squeeze rain off her hem into his open mouth
It has already happened I can see from it all from here
