Not with lust,though the unsettled lover that carries my childthrough woods of tapped maple treeslaid the sum of her muscular body on top of mine last nightand I wondered what could be made of that feeling,already one hand on my belly holding the two of themwarm, deep in snow and the slow drip of sap into each pail.We’re walking with the biologist from Toulousewhose burly husband fires up the sugar shack while their two sonstrail behind, and I stay at her side, wanting the closenessof another mother. It’s too early to know which heartis viable, or how I will explain the singular lifeI’ve chosen, with each step cautious not to fall on the ice-rooted path, I hold onto anything within reach—the blunt lightof sky, her arm, the lover, my child, trunk of the hardwood—I wantto open my mouth and taste what there is.No view of the mountains,only a matter of time. But this is wherewe would admire things like eminence, panorama,perspective, or note the way our bodies are madeexpansive by the intimacy of strangers who see us. What other waydo we know we are home? The scienceof existence directs us to a language of outcomes. If this,then this. I’ve read about the generosityof trees, especially the mothers, ancient and wise, that nurtureand grieve and perceive each bodythat passes through. Silhouette, shadow. And here we are takingwhat we can for our own sweet pleasure.At the clinic, the doctor named the risk factors,and when it was over, praised his collectionof eggs. I was still nothingmore than a repository of longing, I was no one’s passion, helddown by other forces. And months later, I watched the filmof my uterus on the screen—all I had to dowas lie there while two embryos were releasedinto the dark of meuntil the lights went out, and I was infinitely alone,only the nurse’s hand to hold.What part of thisis luck? What part of luckcontains happiness? What partof happiness is the fact of our interdependence?Of desire is science. Of taste is feeling. Of instinctis love. Of child is poetry.There’s no need to apologize for the clouds.Do you want to discuss reduction? the doctor asked me.And to think of the frailty of treeswhen other trees are removed. The sentienceof the forest, alive yet mute.That I could choose to eliminate oneand keep the other. That something was taking format the boiling point, and all I could dowas open my mouth to the pure amber light echoingfrom the place where the mountainsshould have been, sticky and solicitous and eager.