And this is called "A Fetus in Winter."
In the beginning, he taught me to chop wood.
Axes and beer and steamy breath and better wear those leather
gloves, hun, you'll cut off your hand.
At the end, he took me practice driving with snow chains
all the way up into old growth forest, yelling in my ear
as the truck veered off the muddy road.
Later we slipped side by side down
that same path past the barn on something like garbage
can lids with no handles.
I'd already left him once, just after the rabbit died.
And soon we divide up everything--
our dreams, our breath, even the death between us.
But this last day I slide down that hill over and over,
his blood and mine growing inside me, and pray the danger
will decide for me.
Instead of stumbling into the clinic the next week,
my cervix twisting, as if to give birth, dragging him there
with me, as though performing some sort
of ancient sacred ritual.