I love how she feels under my fingers –
full of thoughts not yet finished and sounds
not yet through her lips. And as my hand rounds
my stomach, all that she could be lingers
in my core. I have not yet found her name:
Lily too flowery, and Laura not quite
right for elbows and knees that flail and fight
against tight skin as if it were a game.
I smelled iron the day my body failed me.
No thoughts, no sounds, no crying and no name.
Only that smell, four white coats and a white wall
and a flower arrangement that would be
fitting for her funeral. I don’t blame
myself. My fingers couldn’t stop the fall.