How to Witness a Miracle Without Converting

My mother swapped prayer for sharp screams when my
sister crowned. The epidural settled
on one side until the nerves in her left
hip became stars, dying down the dark of
her thigh. At 17, I watched a girl-
child emerge covered in only-God-can-
name. Maybe, blood-light. Star-vein. Water-
sky. A boneless sea creature who knows some-
thing about the universe sitting next
to ours. I don’t want to go back nor do
I want to die this way—making daughters.
My body has a tenure of chaos
and blood. It’s clotting and ache began at
the edge of girlhood. I see no way out.

Copyright © 2024 by Ajanaé Dawkins. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 16, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“Few things have consumed as much of my thoughts, lyric, and theory as my mother and God. I wrote this poem while thinking about what I’ve witnessed in my mother that I am afraid to confront in myself. The paradox or portal of it all—a daughter watching a daughter birth another daughter into this world. A common miracle. A prophecy. A thinning of the veil. This poem was originally part of a sonnet crown called ‘No one teaches us how to be daughters’ that cataloged memories shaped by my awe of my mother and fear of my own fate.”
—Ajanaé Dawkins