Once There Were Wolves

by Charlotte McConaghy

With my fingers I feel for her head, there is certainly something hard and wet there but I have no way to tell if it’s her skull, I must hope. I am moving still, unable to find the right position, on my back is a nightmare but on my hands and knees I can’t reach to catch her, so in the end I stand up, leaning my forehead against a tree. It holds all of me up, and I bend my knees and reach down to catch her. Within me is a certainty I have never known. This is my pain. It is no trick, not stolen; it belongs to no one but me. This is my body, my child. I can feel her and she is mine and in this moment the truth of that is so powerful I am able to give a mighty push. Her head and shoulders force their way out and then the rest of her slips free, my hands catching her by the leg and swinging her up into my arms. She is a bruised shade and covered in bloody, pussy muck so I lower my mouth to her face and suck her airways clean. She takes a huge breath and she is breathing into my lungs, lungs we share, and I thought my condition was a trick, a curse, a burden to carry but in this moment it is a gift. She opens her eyes. And looks at me. I am halved and doubled at once.