Every month her body prepares the scarlet
garden, leaf on leaf of nesting cells to plump
the shelter, rich red bed stitched with spiral-
arteries ready to bear gifts to feed the visitor.
And every month one packed golden drop
releases, lit seed slipping down the sleek
chute until that fortunate fall into the womb’s
open heart, its come-hither welcome to the
brave egg already yearning for anchor. But
this time or that the pursed lip of ovary locks
the egg in place, or this time or that the sperm
loll and perish, drugged away from match.
A chilled breath begins to frost the unsettled
center. The nest blebs, falters, looses its
hold. Leaf-fall begins. Wind sweeps her garden
bare. There is no baby in this poem.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 19, Issue 4.
Judith Montgomery’s poems appear in Prairie Schooner, Cave Wall, and Rattle, among other journals, as well as in several anthologies. Her chapbook, Passion, received the 2000 Oregon Book Award for Poetry; Red Jess (Cherry Grove Collections, 2006) and Pulse & Constellation (Finishing Line Press, 2007) followed. Her second full-length collection, Litany for Wound and Bloom, will appear in 2018 from Uttered Chaos Press.
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