Journey
He was 93 years old and lived long and well
his dark leather-like skin formed creases that flowed across his face
like a maze
at the sides of his gently closed eyes, along the corners of his smooth lips
and in every empty space in between—
the creases overflow like the life he lived—
a life that was 93years long.
As the broken hearted son shrivels to the earth and weeps
and the casket is slowly lowered beneath the ground,
I fold my hands across my womb
and wrap my fingers around a life that is only days old—
somewhere between a blastocyst and an embryo
I am carrying the absolute beginning of life.
And as this father, grandfather, and great grandfather
disappears beneath the crumbled soil
I marvel at the wonder of life’s journey.
Angel Baby
You are no more than a tiny ribbon of tissue—
your life has only begun days ago
yet you are everything to me
and I marvel at your potential
as I wonder how it will feel to have
you swimming across my womb’s walls
and how it will be meeting you for the first time
and how you will look and what you will be like
and who you will become
and despite the knowledge that physically, you are
no more than tissue and cells
I am overwhelmed by the amount of love
I carry in my heart for you,
my sweet child.
Wrapped
A package arrived in the mail today
dated December 31, 2011—
back when I was still pregnant
with colorful pictures of smiling infants
taped across the box’s surface
with my breath held and my chest pressing against my skeleton,
I grab a knife and cut along the box’s ridges—
breaking in half the largest picture
of a perfectly formed wide eyed infant.
with tears streaming down my face,
I remove a small onesie and lay it gently across the surface
of my empty womb
and watch the ink smear across the card that reads, “To Mama and Baby,”
and grasp a white blanket of feather softness
that should have held my child, come September.
Instead I wrap it around my shivering body and rock myself
in still emptyness
as I carry the weight
of losing the only thing that I have ever wanted.
