Coincidence

The same morning I press my shorn chest
flat against an x-ray machine, my sister
pushes from her body a baby girl.
Praise God, whose hand passes over itself
like river currents as it gives and takes,
pulls one film from the whirring machine
while pushing in a new, unprinted slide.
Praise God for this fearful doubling, over
which I will sometimes weep and curse.
Little breathing at the still whole breast
of my sister, little gold seed of death
awakening as the first sun touches its tendrils.