An Anthology of Poetry and Medicine
Fruit
“She’s like an apple in a water balloon,”
the doctor said. Your wife—reclining
on the exam table, her bare abdomen
a tight dome beneath the roaming
ultrasound wand—leaned against his
sentence, settling into consolation
and release from the worry stirred
by the car accident. Turning, you both
watched your fruit embellish the sonogram,
her shameless repose, her pulse, her
fluid breaths submerging the room,
baptizing you in grace and expectation.
Sounding out her insistent whispering,
you trilled with syllables translated
from the knowledge tree the autumn
God called on Adam and Eve and asked
why their seed was so suddenly ripe
with blood.
first published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought