Pip McGough

The Incarnation

Souls are endless—air—already His.

He needs skin, and the space within it,

the cave of the womb:

to gloss eternity

in time, muscle, milk, breath.

My hips unhook, my breasts rise

to a mouth not yet latched.

I am afraid, because it feels like breaking—

like a spent altar,

like a bridal bed.

I reach for my face:

still there—and more—lit from the bone out,

veins struck through with stars.

The wide night sky is crowded with me.

Heaven has knelt to caress the earth.

I should be singing,

as chosen women sing.

But the world is vast and ever-making,

and I am only one body

making the world.