Common House Magazine

This week, I learned, she will begin to dream. 

I’m oblivious to how fetal researchers know this,

but I choose to trust the app that tells me which legume

I bear the weight of each week. Yesterday, I held 

a flashlight to my womb in hopes she’d reply with a jab.

She did, twice, punching toward the light 

with an accuracy only a philosopher could achieve. 

I remember being four years old and wanting

to grow pumpkins, but lacking the patience 

and botanical experience. My grandmother

planted seeds with me in her garden, 

and as I discovered much later, replaced the seeds

with store-bought pumpkins during my nap. 

That night, I dreamt of germinating as a scintilla

of light, and blooming into a sun for an undiscovered

planet in a matter of hours. 

Perhaps, she felt the same. A sun,

roughly the size of an acorn squash.