Fifth Born

by Zelda Lockhart

  I slumped down on the musty porch. I was lost. Everything had been cut loose from me.

  I floated away in the path of the moonlight. Rain began to fall from the sky in big drops. Ella Mae sat on the step like the morning after we first met. The space between us was massive, I could feel the rhythm of her breathing, and I closed my eyes.

  Her hand passed the ridge of my neck in an uncertain, almost touch, until finally her embrace surrounded my perishing body. The rain fell heavier now, but the revelations kept us still in that moment.

  From her chest came a trapped breath. Her cry rose up from Granmamas porch in long guttural sighs. No words, but pain, love, loss, rising up loud and coming down quiet, moving like thunder over the terrain of her tongue and lips, a familiar comfort from someplace lost.

  I let go of what held my limbs taut, and let her hold me. Her tears came like a warm stream salty in my mouth.

  The two of us held each other tight, making a bridge over streams of our familys blood.

  She muttered, My baby . . . my baby.

  About the Author

  Zelda Lockharts poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in publications including WordWrights, Sojourner, Calyx, and Sinister Wisdom. She received her BA from Norfolk State University, and her MA in Literature from Old Dominion University.