“(24/7) once you sign on to be a mother, that's the only shift they offer.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper
BIRTH AND GROWTH, A POEM
Swollen, toxic, ignorant of motherhood,
you lie in your post-world-war hospital bed,
and wonder if you’ve heard lies.
How can a newborn, untouched
by her life source, be fine?
You see, hear, touch, smell nothing but
bleached sheets and ward antiseptic.
The baby develops away from you
in a nursery. You return home without her,
cord leaked into your womb, severed.
Later, at home, baby grows fed on evaporated milk
and rules made of rules. Each should-be is sacred.
The child reaches for you, to break the barrier,
but not until long after she delivers your grandson.
By then you have embraced age. It has taken you away.
Your great-granddaughter finds your photo in an old album.
“That’s my mother,” your daughter says.
“You would have loved her.”
The chasm finally closes.
For no good reason at all.
illustration made from public domain photo and colored chalk
terrypetersen 