In Transition

I imagine the labored breathing, the urge to push,
contractions that come harder, faster.  Trembling,

hot and cold, legs shaking.  The midwife
whispering, the baby is almost here.

I come to know the cut of a sterile knife
when this body did no more than obey

a silent wish to hold him close to the bone,
when he was early ready to enter the world.

Awakened from a dream to the possibility
of something simply different,

readying for the radical.
After all, everyone and everything moves on,

(Illya’s Honey)