Playing the Chances
Let me, in fancy, enter the womb again
take that precipitant plunge into life
one particular sperm, one particular egg
one chance, one blind collision—
Let me be that minute explosion
of life creating itself,
let me know womb and water and warmth
and dark and swimming and growing
and infant born.
Let me become—cell by cell, division by
division, moving moving becoming more
inexorable growing destined for the
mountain shaking birthing day.
From one spasmodic incident
from minute speck of egg and sperm
with urgency to grow
and here am I
still becoming me—growing
still becoming me dying
passing life on through me
O let me in fancy enter the womb again
and for an instant taste life emergent
coming through playing the chances.
by Betty Lockwood
from The Matriarch’s Song
publisher Peter E. Randall
Portsmouth, NH, 2001