Completed: #15. Read and write more poetry

I've been doing both, the past few days. Here's mine:


Precious Little
(Pregnancy in the time of Corona)

I grew you in quarantine,
while the sick burned
and the healthy misplaced their minds
somewhere outside that they were no longer allowed to go,
while I lost my confidants to their living rooms
and my family - maybe temporarily - to disagreements 
over whether or not I should go to my appointments alone
(a precursor, I worry, to months of your father and I raising you blindly on the island of our backsplit home).

I grew you in quarantine
and you kicked like a fighter,
(like the baby I worried would never arrive,
as if to say: I'm here.)
(like a person who will face the world with the fire of her mother's convictions, and the strength of her father's certainty.)
(like the child I imagine, long-limbed and sharp-elbowed, with brow furrows that communicate everything.)

I grew you in quarantine,
where I tried to build a world for you from precious little,
in a home we do not own
in a city that does not hold you unless you have the money to make it yours.
I drew you crude birds of beads and woodburn,
and imagined one Spring we'd camp out in the backyard to watch their vibrant colours and songs come to life,
that the dark would close in and we'd count the stars,
and I'd hold you close, like when your home was my body.

Original goal list posted here