Ysella Sims

            They watch the screen
            as the sonographer traces
            slow circles on her belly

            and the room dulls
            to a thick, cloistered hush.

            In another room, smaller, colder

            the world rends, roils

            beneath the blue plastic sofa

            while they wait for the midwife

            to tell them, it doesn’t look good.

            In the weeks between, they lean

            against the cool bark

            of the witching tree on the heath
            whisper pleas into its tessellations

            stick stray feathers into the sand

            to arrange their wishes, just so.

            And when it is time, she lies still

                        oh-so-still on the table

            holds her breath

            behaves.

            Outside, a morning of crows

            bare-branched, murdering

            the brumal air with clatter and chaws;

            a carnival flash of parakeets

            at the Richmond window.

            Sun breaking through dank

            in the gorse-crowned field

            to colour the sky sugared pink

            starling egg blue

            the sweet heft of a pear-sized

            ghost in her arms.