Stitch In Time
for M.B.

she’d have had
a baby for me
were it up in her
rather than in her fists
and in her jaws

she swallowed
what certainly
would have become
swallows in the sky

enough swallows
to have made a summer

wings of swallows
instead, within her, flapping
until they went
down the drain

with conception
time and sperm cell marry
time, like thread,
through needle’s eye


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
11:01 p.m. 01/12/07