Pruning

Bless them.
Bless all women
who want to remake their own likeness
but not every day
~Anne Sexton

The mother cat knows her babies before
their bodies sleep like bulbs inside of her.
She knows them with her level, calm instinct.
She knows their wrinkled eyes, their pleading voices.
Her body says breed and she breeds. It says
wait. She carries the little buds before
they open. Her body says give. She cares
for their groping feet and their tiny suckling
teeth. I am no mother cat. I am a
woman who knows nothing of her baby
until it kicks her ripe belly and falls
out, wet and wanting. I cannot destroy
the root because my body is the root,
but I can snip the stem and bear no fruit.