Your cardiologist answers politically/Assata answers morally/Your partner answers bodily/You arrive at an answer watching your lover breathe and imagining new breath.

When I told my cardiologist,

who I chose because I need
my Black heart
in a Black woman’s hands,

she said,

“do it.

In times like these,
we remember
there were always
times like these.”

Or: we have always
brought babies
into impossible worlds.

&: We have always needed
more people
to hold the line.

Lately
you fall asleep
with your face
against my hair,

the wine
on your breath

tinting my dreams
with the color
of crushed grape skins.

I always thought
I was too afraid
to be a mother.

Then I remember Assata,

equating being about life with

refusing
to kill her children
in her mind

before they were born.

In the morning

Your chest rises

falls

rises.

I watch you breathing

and think,

what a hopeful thing

a baby is.