Still Birth

I tried to capture the essence of what still birth means to the mother. This poem was first published in The Sacred Feminine: Open Skies Poetry Collection on 28th September 2021

Hot tears ran down my cheeks

filled with anguish and with pain

my hopes shattered;

only greyness, now remained.

The love I’d carried inside had died

before he saw the light of day,

my baby; still born,

in my arms limp he lay.

My tears flowed

they could not water him back to life

unlike a plant, he could not revive.

I held him close and kissed his brow

and wished and wished

that, this was not how,

his birth had been.

My son had taken my heart away

and with it, all my imagined future days.

I would never see him grow tall

or play with friends,

or wipe his bloodied knees

or hug him tight, or tell him stories in bed at night.

I’d never see him go to school

play football, swim or ride a bike.

All I would have, would be packed

in a box. A name band, a bootee

and… one photograph