TWELVE WEEKS
golden shovel after James Wright
The words after gone were left unheard. Suddenly
I went from with to without, from expecting to I
don’t know, what—unexpecting? How can I realize
this leaving when you never yet arrived, holding that
whispered might-have-been alongside bitter what-if-
I-had-only? These things happen for a reason they said, and I
should know there is no fault. Just fault lines to be stepped
across, between mother and not, the tasks of crossing out
the numbered weeks penciled on the calendar, of
telling who I must. Strange how my belly still curved, my
breasts twinged, the daylong quease carried on, as if my body
hopefilled to the last, believed it no more than I.
My less than little one, I would have flown to the moon, would
have crawled there if crawling could have brought you home. Break
open hope, dilate and gently scrape, suction what’s leftover into
lines on discharge papers. Good to go. Goodbye, my blossom.
—from Rattle #55, Spring 2017
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Melanie Wright: “Poetry is an engine for remembering itself, and well done form keeps it lubed up and running smooth. I love poems that beg to be read aloud, that melt in the mouth like a Lindor truffle. I started reading poetry when my babies were young, and I couldn’t stay awake long enough for a whole novel chapter, became hooked, and quickly succumbed to the disease of writing my own. Now when I haven’t written in a while I get spiritual constipation and am a right old witch.”
