Close to term, as poppies bloomed
and bluebirds hummed in the honeysuckle,
the baby began to nestle
its soft cranium into her pelvis’
narrow doorway, and she knew
the day was near. Until one morning,
pushing gently on a knee,
she felt the once squirming presence
grow strangely motionless and heavy.
An hour later the ultrasound wand
searched the silent depths of her womb
and the midwife said, “I’m sorry,
I can’t find a heartbeat.”
But even a baby who is dead must still be born.
Labor induced like a sickness —
each convulsing contraction full of grief,
an inconsolable wailing — she pushed
and pushed until the tiny body wrapped in pink
was handed to her, and its two blue feet
took their only steps across a sheet of paper.
Belly empty and shriveled,
breasts swollen with milk,
she is a bleeding woman with no baby
to feed, to comfort. Her empty house
slowly filling with flowers.
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