A fetus the size of a red cabbage
rests contracted in its mother’s uterus,
its hands by its neck, its legs rolled up
and crossed.
When 2000 years ago, the mother died,
her womb circled the unborn like a song.
To preserve the mother, embalmers
used a salt mixture harvested
from dry lake beds.
Dried her tongue like tilapia or perch.
Entombed in a watertight uterus,
the fetus pickled—acid
accosting its blood.
It is unclear if the embalmers could not,
or would not, extract the child
from its mother, douse it in salt.
We know the song was sound as stone.
The salt content in Lake Natron,
miles and miles south, is so high
it calcifies the carcasses of bats
and swallows, who die
staring at themselves in the lake’s glass face.
When the water recedes, a flock
of small stones appears along the shore—
the mother mid-flight.
The unborn sleeps like a thorn
in the ruins of its mother—every bone sings
her red salt song.