Dresses pushing prams,
The evidence of life
And its rotation.
Girls showing their insecurity
On exposed skin,
Walking the path
Towards the world’s
Low-hanging validation.
Outside of the motion,
Eyes an X-ray to the soul,
I watched the hearts
On the left side of their bodies
Move up and down,
With every breath, every step,
And I thought aloud.
Where would my words go
If no one ever heard them?
Clouds coming in,
Soft and pink,
Like the curtains in a nursery
For a baby who never came.
Did she still hear the lies
In her head,
Even as an infant?
There was a part of me
That did not want to know.
There was another that
Imagined the mother,
Full of rocks at a shoreline,
Her body a mesh enclosure,
Weighed down as the waves
Of grief washed over her,
Again and again,
Until she was only the sand
People collected on vacations.
I’ve gotten carried away,
But I know, somewhere,
A girl looks at these clouds,
And sees her sorrow
Held in God’s hands of sunset,
Coddling the child in softness,
Before, through, and after the rain.