One week later, I looked up stillborn.
Feeling too done-before, and shocking
in its frequency, and like a dirty word
that was something that described us,
science or statistics that made my mouth
constrict and then soften with moisture.
I went to the library to do it, feeling
guilty and disgusted reading about
myself in my own dictionary, but
theirs was great yellowed white,
crackling pages, millions of words
and people looking for themselves
there, I found a moth pressed
between the pages, like its own
little translucent, ephmeral leaf,
with veins for words, and blood
drained out, and more years dead
than living, and through its forewing
I read (of an infant) born dead.
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