The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 12/13/08

[BlueIris]

"Birthday"

There is silk in your voice,
a healing web, the feel of cashmere,
the whisper like wind in hair,
the softness of cottonwood seed—
life just now beginning to show,
the slight swell at the belly,
a turn of the breast, the yield
at hips, new strength at thighs.
Sometimes we feel the kick
of a foot, the movement of a hand.
Once when blood came too soon
we held to each other long after alarms
and napped far into morning.
In a few months everything will be ready:
we will bring our totem into a room
where breathing and the holding
of hands will begin a new beginning.

—Michael H. Brownstein