her fourteen-year-old daughter will approve.
The young girl anticipates the baby
as you would a root canal, knowing some
poignant, sizzling nerve will disappear,
and with it childhood yanked twice from the womb.
Her mother might pirouette about this,
but the new baby is all counterweight
and bulk-throb, and daughter is lead-footed,
an acrobat. Badly choreographed,
this new flourish is a sheer betrayal,
the second violin leaping in front
in the third movement, tripping her when all
she wanted was backbeat, pause for effect.