I am in a volcano

that is lava without red which

is mean of my mind but I am at

least awarded Sophie who I cling

to on a dragon pool-float as

our bald crowns sparkle over

the sulphuric gas before

she is rushed away to brunch

with her children and I am reminded

of my barrenness with a tethered

kind of calm where I am forced under

rock as I search for my dead children

by their feet but there are no toes

only things that resemble frozen crabsticks

or trick birthday candles where everyone

is too white to be mine

so I go back & follow the loss

all the way home to the first water bear

to exist and here I find myself suckered

into a crater that functions

the way any room does with gravity

like one of those primordial waiting rooms

that run by normal force & petrol sponges

& midwives that suck on the carpel

of lilies as they stack the blue roll

like flames in a bin today this woman

told me about her waterbirth she smiled

she stroked my cheek said the whole thing

was easy like shooting out a bullet