Kerri French

Perigee

As the moon appeared, muscle
shifted and the itch set in,
the baby gnawing over bone.
I spoke to the teeth of stars

inked across my arms.
I crawled to the body’s edge.
Everyone looked to the sky
as I sunk beneath my skin.

Veins wrapped around our limbs
and the baby pulled the clouds
through the window, the room
scratched clean of the dark.

I slept for the first time in days.
I touched the sky with my palms.

Years From Now, I Remember Our Vacation

Tell me about the time she was sixteen
and the three of us swam in the ocean.

Tell me how it felt when the drugs pulled her
from water, the same dream split against

the window, the root.  The clock spells noon
and the kitchen reads warm, which means

we’re together again, which means you thought
you saw her last night in the street.

So what if the fruit is burning.
So what if the stove burns my thumb.

Tell me the doctors are wrong. Tell me
about the dream where my daughter grows old. 

37 Weeks

The waiting was like a dance
inside me, a gunshot fired
across a clear field

I remembered walking past
years before I knew
she may leave me.

It was easier to imagine her
standing on a platform
as a train approached,

the blame I placed
everywhere except myself
only a whisper of an engine

still not born, the doctors
standing on the track
warning too late, too late.