Mothers Never Rest

Prayers, once sandbags, become helium when answered

and no concern concerns me until I come to my senses

and remember that I live in fear of complaisance,

leery of comfort, unaware of rest

ever since the pregnancy test read positive.

Age and the sage study it grants warns

the next fear worms at every turn

because the world stands big and bad and brutal

and I—a bear, arms out-stretched, fur fluffed and raised—

stand between it and my babies.

All the gratitude I hold sits on the shoe that threatens to drop.