For Eager Lovers (Taggard collection)/With Child

by Genevieve Taggard

WITH CHILD

Now I am slow and placid, fond of sun,Like a sleek beast, or a worn one:No slim and languid girl—not gladWith the windy trip I once had,But velvet-footed, musing of my own,Torpid, mellow, stupid as a stone.

You cleft me with your beauty's pulse, and nowYour pulse has taken body. Care not howThe old grace goes, how heavy I am grown,Big with this loneliness, how you alonePonder our love. Touch my feet and feelHow earth tingles, teeming at my heel!Earth's urge, not mine—my little death, not hers;And the pure beauty yearns and stirs.

It does not heed our ecstasies, it turnsWith secrets of its own, its own concerns,Toward a windy world of its own, toward starkAnd solitary places. In the dark,Defiant even now, it tugs and moansTo be untangled from these mother's bones.