Lithopedion

Breaking like a ninepin inside. We were fulfilled but also
petrified. Tied up by an adhesion, this is the story that we like
to tell: divided into parts. This is the story of an arm, a leg,
an “armistice immobile.” Hands as if taped to the head, legs
akimbo. “We slid the bright contraption over calves.” Now,
through this curtain we can see our rolling dawn: white
and encased, how many eons in the making. The sun now
rising through its tubes, we wonder if we are a ball or pin.

Copyright © 2024 by Katy Lederer. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 7, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“‘Lithopedion,’ with its roots in ancient Greek, means ‘stone baby.’ It is used to describe a very rare pregnancy complication in which a fetus passes away in utero and the body then protects itself from infection by calcifying it, like a stone. This poem is part of a series that meditates on early pregnancy using a combination of technical medical language and traditional forms and rhymes.”
—Katy Lederer