catapult magazine

You

by MaryAnn McKibben Dana

You stretched out in the bath:
you, my water-bearer,
water-dweller,
you, who ripened inside me,
grape, plum, apple, pumpkin,
until the harvest time
(hand picks an apple, hand picks a plum,
dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum)
until you slid down, down, down
out of deep, unordered water
let there be you!
And then there was,
you, all of you, already:
lungs, spine, ovaries, eggs…
eggs! Yes —
silly, small things,
but they were,
all there,
in the beginning,
in you.
You already held them,
gently cradled,
but did not know it.
Someday you will know,
as I know,
that I cradled them too,
in you
in me:
nesting dolls
of possibility
for a future —
untold generations.