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When I came home to a crib, dismantled
Rather like the life I knew
Somewhere in those catatonic hours
There came a voice
It said, me too.
A community of women who birthed death
Who unlike ‘widow’, ‘orphan’ have no name
Shared photographs of waxen hands and wrinkled feet
Lives not lived
My child the same.
Me too witnessed beauty beyond
Blackened lips and nails; a slackened chin
And gently rocked a lifeless babe to sleep
Dabbing oozing nostrils
Kissing livid skin.
Me too was hope: the very sight
Of those who came before me, who survive
To know the pink and screaming siblings of
Our silent children.
Mothers not just living, but alive.
And now I find myself, years on
Moving ever forward in the queue
As someone else begins the heavy march of
Motherhood without a child
And I can say
Me too.
Rather like the life I knew
Somewhere in those catatonic hours
There came a voice
It said, me too.
A community of women who birthed death
Who unlike ‘widow’, ‘orphan’ have no name
Shared photographs of waxen hands and wrinkled feet
Lives not lived
My child the same.
Me too witnessed beauty beyond
Blackened lips and nails; a slackened chin
And gently rocked a lifeless babe to sleep
Dabbing oozing nostrils
Kissing livid skin.
Me too was hope: the very sight
Of those who came before me, who survive
To know the pink and screaming siblings of
Our silent children.
Mothers not just living, but alive.
And now I find myself, years on
Moving ever forward in the queue
As someone else begins the heavy march of
Motherhood without a child
And I can say
Me too.
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