Cusp

Cusp is an ugly word.  That merciless /k/, sticking in the throat before disgorging itself into a bland, muddy vowel, the tongue lodged in its rut.  To close, the ungainly tangle of consonants, a hiss and a spit. The worst thing is how the word hurls itself from back to front, as if loosed by an emetic.  

Time- that great ipecac.

I'm about to have a baby.

She's angling to be overdue.  My first was overdue, so this shouldn't be a surprise, but yet I'm dismayed, bemused, lost.   Babies are one of the two remaining things we must wait for, marooned amidst the rubble of our calendars with no app or screen or hapless agent to harass for an updated time of arrival.

Death is the other.

Overdue means lonely.  It means a stripped down, too-big life; my obligations strafed, my will enfeebled.  I'm ready; of course I'm not ready.  I can't bring a baby into this blackening world; it's far too late not to.  I know how I'll fall.  Just not when.