I stop bleeding; hold six months 
in my hands; pee on so many sticks, 
in so many bathrooms, I lose 

count. At a house by the sea, I think 
maybe and then bury the used test 
at the bottom of the trash. 

There are different shades 
of waiting. Mary waiting for God 
in Fra Angelico’s Annunciation 

is different than Fra Angelico waiting 
for his blue paint to dry 
so he could paint the stars.

I set another five-minute timer on my phone
and sit in an empty bathtub, ringed 
with sand and other people’s hair. 

This particular shade of waiting is beige: 
the color of I-already-know-
what-I-already-know. 

When my doctor tells me 
my body is asleep, I see her: 
my body. She is immense, 

a delicate other, like a whale. 
The pencil outline of her body faint
beneath the black surface of water. 

I want to take her in my arms, 
make her a bed with clean sheets, 
let her sleep for a hundred years.