she would whisper to it every night,
her magnum opus,
a great swollen reminder
that she had conceived a miracle.
and when it kicked
she never would have thought it would turn out the way it did
that it would have to kill a man at the age of 19
kill its second soon after that,
its third
its tenth
its hundredth,
man
woman
child
fetus;
and when it kicked
she smiled,
held her stomach softly,
said "I love you,"
and dreamed of what it would grow up to be.
