Placenta

“Snow glistens in its instant in the air” 
—Wallace Stevens 

I picture it, a milky glass teardrop 
Just large enough to fill my cupped hand. 
It floats in an almost-dark cave; 
It lights the cave but slightly, casting 
Wan shadows, a vessel of music and logic 
Unknown among us. 

I saw it as a dark circle on the ultrasound, 
Saw it conspicuously empty.  
It’s common, the doctor said, for it to end this way. 
But it hasn’t ended, even after the procedure, 
After bringing you grape juice in a paper cup, 
And watching you lift it to your mouth, trailing 
An IV tube from your wrist. 

The dark teardrop is still there 
Not a thing but a place, as the name suggests, 
A place that cannot be given or taken, 
That does not live or die. 

Previously published in Fire in the Pasture: Twenty-First Century Mormon Poets, edited by Tyler Chadwick (El Cerrito, Calif.: Peculiar Pages, 2011).