Caroline Picker
Notes on Mothering a Dead Baby
1.
Once I birthed a mountain.
It was a small mountain.
I gave it to my people to climb
and they did.
2.
If I never longed for children,
something curled radiant in my arms—
3.
Can’t you see it?
What I have borne?
All this damn life?
4.
May your hatchlings live to fly.
May we bless the scentless flowers for still becoming.
5.
This is a cup. This, a dog.
This is the sun. You may look,
but only the other way.
Caroline Picker (she/her) is a queer parent, poet, community organizer, and fundraiser for movements for collective liberation living in Southern Vermont on Abenaki land. Her writing has appeared in Subnivean, West Trade Review, Pensive, and Literary Mama, among other publications.