Bonita Jewel
Hush
92 days—average lifespan
of an eyelash.
Shorter than the mango tree
borer—a beetle the length of a pinkie finger
—its 180 days enough time to seek
a mango tree and bore life
from its stems, roots, and points of growth.
28 days—average cycle of uterine
blood lining pear-sized receptacle,
shedding with tides
of the moon. For me
this blood cycle lasts
twenty-four days. If I reached
twenty-eight days without
this loss,
the blood would remain
as border and shield,
for an average of two hundred eighty days
—ten lunar months of swelling
gestation. Except once.
73 days—total span of my unborn
child’s life. Too early
for gender or lungs, for bending elbows,
for fingernails, though the heart
beat at forty-five days. Tears stole
past ancient eyelashes as
unborn lifeblood left my body.
No reason emerged
from the hush of emptiness.