My body would not give you up.
An iris slow to open
at the center of me,
softened only by hours,
in the rush of waters
narrowed again
and in the end,
on the third day,
had to be held open
for you.
You must understand if
at night I press my face
to your chest, hold
a small foot
in each of my hands.
My body aches
sometimes
for the wing-flutters,
the swollen rolls,
the second pulse it knew
when it held
both of us.
Karen Pojmann is a writer and editor. She has worked mostly in magazine journalism in places including New York, San Francisco and Columbia, Missouri, her current home, where she now manages a team of writers at the University of Missouri and runs a literary reading series. She has successfully raised one child to adulthood and is working on the others.