I do not come bearing gifts like the magi,

or introduced by angels like the shepherds. I have

mistimed and miscalculated and misunderstood, and

the Christ I seek

is still a fetus, still developing the fingers he

used to form the world, the eyes that surveyed

it, perceiving it as “Good.”

Mary, you grow this human God inside you.

Eternity now bears your DNA.

Here, at the navel of the cosmos,

you prepare a place for him.

Holy Mary, Gestator of God,

I can only wait with you —

But is the kicking I feel inside me

also Life? Is the emptiness around me

also at work to make him room?

Let me linger here and learn from you;

for soon you will be wearied with new motherhood,

and all the world will come to suckle

at your breast.