Spring stirs in her sleep,
stretches,
tentative tautness, this seeping skin,
this catch in the throat
too afraid to name hope
as predecessor;
life labours in a womb
swollen with the earth’s
heartbeat and
fed by soil’s
placenta. She croons in her dreams,
low mourning dove cries wrenched
from a heart full, overflowing
its banks; her sighs are the
wind in the pussy-willows,
her song the cry of geese on
the wing.