The night my water broke, my husband
          hid in the bathroom, sat on the apricot toilet in his pajamas,

                    face in hands to block out change. I told him to stop

          fucking around and get in the car, strapped precaution
to my stomach with a pink and blue elastic, beeping fast at first,

             then slower, then no answer as the night tore and

swelled with doctors. How soft
             can a live heart beat? We circled

                    and re-circled the hospital ward, leaning hard
          on the handrail while a monsoon swept away

the route back home. There was another
          route beneath that swirled with seedpods,

   bits of trash. I circled, grasping pain, the chance

                    to swaddle it in muslin stamped with whales. Transparent
          fingernails unspooled each wrap and tuck, ripped currents into still

                    unbounded space. I’ve been working to refold

          that map of intermittent hours on its creases, forward,
                                  back, to stow it in a drawer

                    beneath the crib. It was night,
                                  or it was morning. The rain

                            broke free and scratched itself awake.