s t a t i c

:  m a r i a   p a c e  

tenderizing bliss of creation--
seven weeks of the calendar, and we could only
deduce your existence through chemistry
and blurred sensations

you huddled, blanketed inside, and we
climbed mountains in your first week.
warmly safe, you were--
even in forty-degree fog among alpine shrubs
ice pellets forming on our arms
your arms forming unaware

but you were over
before they could prove you were even here.
you-- the creature who had journeyed a mile in the air
a lifetime ago.

the ultrasound girl said
--off the record, that might be a heartbeat,
to mere static on the screen
muffling cloudy shapes

someone died in those shadows
I knew before they proved it in blood.
tell me someday , did you experience
the same pain? can you know it was
my body that rejected you--
not I.