Hayden's Ferry Review
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sophia stid's matrescence

Matrescence

Become mother, become room, become food,
become miracle. The heart of each devours

the other’s heart. Hurry—become faster. Barely
made myself, I knew what they said meant

my body was a door, made for someone else
to come through. Become sacrament.

The commandments I kept, the ones
I couldn’t keep—all practice before

this one. Become sacrosanct. In birth, the pain
is not like other pain. In birth, the pain is purpose

ful and anticipatory. Anticipate. Become vanishing
act. Become numb, shaved, cut, split, crazy with pain—

become bare beneath the wide washed
lights of medicine and angels—become everything

and so nothing, and no one, but a mother,
a miracle room, a heart in someone else’s mouth.