By Alla Bozarth, Julia Barkley, and Terri Hawthorne, from Stars in your Bones: Emerging Signposts on Our Spiritual Journeys (St. Cloud, Minnesota: North Star Press, 1990). Used with permission.

I am pregnant with myself.

Do you realize what this means?

It means that every part of me must die,

all my cells and organs open and dissolve,

for I need their juicy substances

to nurture my new blood:

let teeth become eyes,

gullet become brain,

grey become bright red,

and hair turn into wings.

This is the truth of me —

I was, am, and shall be

my Self, forever new,

forever changing by changing,

creature blessed by consciousness,

Alive.

And this is not

a voiceless act, but a process

resounding inside death

with lusty shouts and whoops,

irregular and visible below

the carcass veil.

And death grows thinner,

giving way to God-know-What —

diminishing like gauze

Of spun sugar melting in the sun.

Soon, I will be full-ripe

with my Self,

able to nurse on sweet nectar,

free and light as living rain.

Soon, I will fly.