Women in Labor

Women who lie alone at midnight

because there is no one else to lie to

Women who lie alone at midnight

at noon in the laundromat

destroying their own socks

Women who lie alone at midnight:

Women who lie alone at midnight

as the first furl of starlight

pearls the moon with nacre

Women who lie alone at midnight

sending a postcard bearing

the face of a bawling infant

who cries “I am for the new”

Women who lie alone at midnight

reciting the names of shoes

Women who lie alone at midnight

spurting unjustified tears,

the kind that run sideways

never reaching the mouth,

the kind you cannot swallow

Women who lie alone at midnight

singing breast away the burden of my tender

and afterwards burp

Women who lie alone at midnight

obeying the laws of physics

Women who let their dreams curl at the end

Women in a monastery of flamingos

Women who die alone at midnight

contributing to the end, to

lost time, to the rain and flies,

seeing the bird they saw trapped in the airport

surviving by the water fountain

What’s more, try it sometime

It works