it is something i've never had
- a contraction – the type caused from
a baby's head exploding into
an arrogant world     just the other day
my co-worker spent damn near
a half-hour babbling about her first
and second pregnancies     how the
contractions came in rhythms
slow slow then fast    beating the
life drum between her legs
she reminisced about how at first
she had something that sounded
like one of my ex-boyfriends
‘a Braxton Hicks'
‘a false labor'  in layman's terms  
i'm confused but nod anyways  
she talks about the uterus
clenching and releasing
like Morse code
a dot dot dash that symbolizes
birth is beginning
it's funny that the only contraction
i know about is the linguistic kind
the type that is "improper" to
use in business letters
my contraction involves two
individual and independent words
merging together to form
a new word
for example
I am – I'm
He is  - He's
They are – They're
a collapse
an origami fold into greatness
you know, the same way two people
enter each other like the dusk
leaning into night and nine
months later produce – a contraction

Celeste Doaks is a Hoosier by birthright, but called Brooklyn her home for over 10 years. Currently, this poet and journalist is pursuing her MFA at North Carolina State University and misses midnight sirens, house music, and cheap corner-store Chinese food. The only other thing she loves more passionately than poetry are her two 10-year-old nephews.

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Keywords : birth, motherhood

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