My mother must wear the deaths of her children
Like cold hard stones around her neck;
Mine is a pendant.
A sharp, glittering, beautiful thing
That presses at the base of my throat,
That says: I had a child, and she died
But I survived.
I peer into the prams of passing women
And expect to see them empty.
Sometimes I wake, on a summer morning,
Feeling the weight of a child in my arms -
I am a paradox:
I am not a mother. I have a child, no child,
I have grief and nothing to grieve.
I see the world through two pairs of eyes
One brown, one blue - like her father's
And they tell me it's for the best
This is no way to raise a child,
A child myself -
But I grew up in seconds when I saw
The blood of my daughter.
My mother must wear the deaths of her children
Like cold, hard stones around her neck
A birthday, a death-day, a hundred missed kisses
Mine is a pendant
Something beautiful pressed hard
Out of something ugly
Something to treasure, and remember.
