The faceless child whose weight pressed into
the mattress beside you last night was never
meant to comfort; she comes first as terror,
a small rupture reminding you of something lost.
You lay there pinned, watching the dark
gather around her smooth, unreadable face—
a surface offering nothing, and somehow
offering you back to yourself.

You told me you prayed, hoping she’d release
the tight braid of your bodies, and how
a vast hand—God’s, you said—filled the doorway,
spilling gold dust over everything you feared.
And then you rose together, unbound,
unfolding into a single standing figure—
a shape I recognized the moment it resembled me.