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