The earth is wet leather, heavy leather
Smacks of voices, calling for the ball
Big oval lights and physical
contest After a long, fallow
season
The ridges of my shoes clean, un-mudded
With heel held to cheek of buttock
Maybe stretching
Maybe killing time between feeds
Legs not slender but powerful
Heavy with a fatness I can’t cure
After the long, dry season:
Wet shoes, flying earth, exhaustion and pain
In the year of my pregnancy
Her limbs grew so long they wound
Under my body and turned purple
She’s born helpless
In the beginning, there’s no
beginning Because we’re awake and
outside time
Now I persuade my stride
open As if running were easy