Glory

Cold gel spreads across my skin.
The technician’s voice cuts–
into that hidden hollow
where dream and waking meet.

The plan dissolves like mist:
first percentile. high-risk. Induction.
Bones braced for if.
Her heartbeat, once a cradle-song,
now a faint signal across the screen.

A faltering hymn rises–
weaving through machine’s hum,
a shield against if.
I wait beneath wings,
but the shadow constricts.

Wires hum. White sheets glare.
Whispers: stillborn. small. sick.
Yet he speaks another:
Yada: known. named. held.

The drip begins.
The womb groans–
echo of creation.
a constellation pulsing behind the glass.
Almost lost,
yet every star He names
is gathered, held, kept.

Wires. Strangers.
Pain summoned.
A cry. A Breath.

The hollow bears down–
The veil splits: dust and breath
Selah.
The weight lifts.
Bound by breath and gravity.
The cord is cut,
gravity released.
Small, yet knit,
a brighter star breaks forth --
Glory --
splitting silence like dawn.

--
Alexandria Marianne Leon is a poet and mother based in Salem, Oregon, where she writes about motherhood, faith, embodiment and the quiet, sacred moments of ordinary life. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Parousia and Radix.