Never Nine

I.

II.
Like before: I kept a list of paper cuts and cramps—the sullen of (you) th—the taste of tin, the smell of antibiotics hemorrhaging at midnight.

III.
Minnow, you are a tiny butter pear, you quicken like a bruise.

IV.
You are still here and weigh five ounces.  The skins assemble a nest.  The doctor tells me over the curl and swoop of telephone wire.

V.
Your metronome.  Gypsophila.  Sopravvissuto.

VI.
Braxton Hicks plays Let’s Pretend. He’s dressed in blue and white between splayed legs.

VII.
Chances slim.  Jagged as a pinecone.  Trickled Spring.

VIII.

IX.

Photo credit: Elizabeth Perry