Poetry: The Keepsake Ultrasound

If one tube was open
it would be impossible to exist
your eyes are forming
that lets you see

Before you were known
before you were fashioned
by those who wait more eagerly
wombfruit
hanging by a coiled rope

if one duct was closed
and here in your chamber
by the light of the candle
from one end of the world to the other

you were fashioned
you were loved
than watchmen for the dawn
with your eerie beauty
like tefillin by your heart

what was your face before it was your face?

Poetry Editor Alicia Ostriker comments:

If “ecstasy” is a word for joy that carries us beyond our bodies, what can be the word for
joy filling us with light within the womb? This transcendent poem moves toward knowing.
I am moved and amazed by the way it fuses blessings drawn from Jewish sources with
the mystery of the Zen koan that finally has an answer.