I'm getting published in the journal "Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley"
- I wrote it when I was working at a battered woman's shelter(obviously)....
In the Shelter
In the shelter
I work at
there is a woman
whose lover stabbed
her in the womb.
She cremated the child
whose heart beat for 31 minutes,
four months too early
We Fed-Exed the ashes
and cried together over how
a life could be shipped cross -country
in 24 hours
when she went into labor
with her 40 staples
she knew she was bearing
her son into
death
So now we are providing her
advocacy - someone even bought
her a plant "to get some new life going"
But the whole time
I am thinking of her running breasts
and empty, scarred stomach
wondering if those staples
are the only things
holding her
together.
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2 comments:
fuckin gorgeous and painfully evocative.
miss charity-- thank you for sharing this...this poem treads the fine line between making us want to look away from the pain and feeling riveted to it by the humanity of it all. thank you thank you thank you, m'deah.
G
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