Miscarriage...

Blood.

So much blood.

Life itself drains away, and with it all the hopes of a new encounter, a precious gift, a person and the treasure of coming to know them, lost.

Labor pains, for later term. Heart-numbing confusion.

Will the child, in death, need be delivered?

Whomever this child may be, may.

A heartbeat there and gone the next day.

A sharp contraction, and blood which signifies the loss.

A woman in labor to give birth to the whole suffering of human life,

a life-giving act without life,

a breath that cannot be taken in,

the inevitable end of all men

to be found before he has scarce begun,

a witness and a sign

of the human condition

to die, lungs constricted, heart unbeating,

man in the throes of daily life beset by empty sufferings,

by scars and wounds of past,

connected to life by a thread

unable to connect

for he has left his soul for dead -

All in her labor and the blood,

this child breaks her worn heart

and shows all life to us...