Because one night I was in a room
listening until only one heart beat.

From “After Words” by Kimberley Blaeser (Full Poem )

 

i.

after my miscarriages, i am told

‘you can try again.’

‘at least you know you can get pregnant.”

‘there was probably something wrong with the baby.’

i am reminded again and again how common it is to lose a child in utero.

 

i want to scream, ‘but it’s never happened to me’

 

ii.

 

my wedding dress is transformed into a collection of burial gowns for stillborn infants.

 

i think to share this with you, for that dress represents twenty-five years of our lives. what it has become seems a beautiful tribute to the losses we endured together.

 

but without warning, you have ceased speaking to me. i reason you won’t care what i’ve done with my wedding dress.

 

this may be why we are no longer married.

 

the seamstress sends me a remnant as a keepsake, a small beaded pouch. i press it to my cheek, then bury it in the bottom of a drawer, empty.

 

iii.

 

i take you to the vet. you’re fierce and cranky, chatty and loving, and just a wee thing, but smaller than you should be.

 

your condition isn’t serious; one pink pill twice a day will set you to rights. but you will have to be on medication for the rest of your life.

 

i don’t know then that the rest of your life is seven days.

 

iv.

 

on this day.

 

facebook sends me reminders of my past.

 

in one week, two photos. cheek to cheek. arms

 

wrapped until there is no space between one body and the other.

 

i think of you as a sister. a woman whose heart seems entwined with mine. you are family. my friend.

 

(my life companion + my best friend) / (what happens in life that defies explanation) =                      .

 

in one of those photos i am pregnant, but i don’t yet know it.

 

in both of those photos i hold so many endings. i don’t yet know that, either.

 

 

v.

 

‘i’d like to meet your mother’ – you tell me.

 

i’d like to meet her, too. for the woman who let go of me wasn’t my mother.

 

and yet i worry i’ll end up just like her.

broken. alone.

 

when i was small and thought you were whole

 

was it already too late for you?