Sway

On nights like tonight

Constellations emerge

Branches sway

Stars flicker through

Gaps made by

Leafless limbs, stark

Winter's pruning

When I first

Became pregnant

Terror threatened to

Swallow me

Its chasmic maw

Deep, dark

I have always

Played chess in

Eight directions

Five steps ahead

Carving out

Plans within plans

So that I will

Never be

Helpless again

Cosmic joke; Universe’s

Unbridled amusement

Like a tree

Left untended

I relinquished control

To automatic processes

Hormones tangled

In terrible ways

With my vulnerable

Mind and body

Fear cut me down

Until one night

A lifeless stump

Cheek pressed to

Cold bathroom tile

In dark hours, deciding

You can do things

In love

Or you can do things

In fear

You must

Do the things

Regardless

I chose the right

Branch to nurture

To guide me

In all things

But sometimes

I still forget where

My heart is nested

Today, warring

With myself

Berating mind’s

Inability to focus

On horizon’s prize

In the late hours

Soaking in the tub

Is where

Clarity always comes

Ceaselessly, I am

Scanning my son

For knots, rot

Foresight to

Prepare and protect

Fearing what

I cannot see

Blind to how

Secure he is

Rooted in love

Never needing to

Make this choice

For himself

Because he has

Sprouted along this stem

All hard steps taken

Trudging through

Dante’s forest

Full of danger

To leave behind

Hopelessness

Blossomed into a boy

Who loves strategy

How things are made

Drawing swords

Reading Percy Jackson

He is the child I was

Before everything

Was taken

Now I know

Now I can see

Gaps open to sky

Must exist

They are simply

Places to breathe

So he may

Grow