My baby fell apart, and I could see.
It was a simple vision of surrender;
There was no baby left inside of me.

I’d learned a way to be, but suddenly
The baby bent a way I could not bend her.
My baby fell apart, and I could see

Her falling through a loud internal sea
Away from the one place that still kept tender.
There was no baby left inside of me.

I fell apart; I couldn’t even be
There for the loss. I lost my need to mend her.
My baby fell apart, and I could see

Something of her who fell away from me,
But nothing to make me ever need to tend her.
There was no baby left inside of me;

I had no baby; I could only see
The need to be apart from her, to end her.
My baby fell apart—and I could see.
There was no baby left inside of me;

First published in Snakeskin Poetry