The doctor draws a pixelated circle
around a photograph of the Moon’s surface
and says, I’m pretty sure it’s a girl.
The photo is not of the Moon’s surface—
though I wouldn’t fault you for thinking
it was. The photo, with its tempestuous swirl
of whites and grays, is of our daughter’s
hazy labia. We call the Moon a woman
but the face inside it a man. I call the fetus
creature because I think it will hurt less
if someday I leave the hospital empty-handed.
We are always naming things
what they are not. The creature thumps
against my abdomen like a squirrel
barreling along my body’s roof, runs
like a rain-fat creek across my cervix. The collision
of two women—Earth and Theia—once birthed
the Moon. Every terrible man fed on the body
of a woman, then fled to set fires and leave them
burning. I would rather this child not be meat
or tinder, but ash-streaked vengeance. I would
rather her be what we see when we peer
at the photograph—tornado of heat and shadow,
suggestion of something that can’t quite be defined.
