The Miscarriage

I peed on a stick
…and a cross appeared.

A child to come.
A child when I was told I could never have one.

In the wake of my miracle,
Of my budding Serephina Madeleine,
I lay awake at night,
as shadows frisk the flesh
As melodies steal their way from sonorous hearts
and rhythms beat a path from their cages

I waited...
In hope
to hear her yet unheard heart’s beat at the doctors

There was none

...the next time
He said

when the doctor would listen once again.
In a few weeks

I waited...
In hope
To hear her heart beat, through an ultrasound
As a rhythm as regular as an old song
handed down from generations passed.

Don't leave me, 
don't leave me!!!
My child
My child to be.
STAY …
Within me.
I waited all these years for you!

And I waited...
In hope
For him to embrace the miracle
Not run from it
…and from me.

Stars danced in the sky,
Leaves danced in the trees,
Their rustling a music like a mother’s voice
singing a lilting lullaby to her child
As grandmothers sang to their daughters
Just as their mothers had done
And their mothers before that

A ritual as old as the wind

Pretending sleep in a room where windows turn dreams to frost
Windows and doors open inside
and empty spaces are filled with mourning

The walls of the world have been torn down
and the soul seeps out
A butterfly emerging from its cocoon?

Yet in someone else's world,
a baby sings her first song.
Her heart beats from its small cage
Melodies steal their way from her sonorous heart
and rhythms beat a path
The baby’s heart’s rhythm as regular as those before it
Like an old song handed down from generations past

Where one soul departs,
another arrives
...For someone else

And I must choose to hear that as song
Not as teasing

...And so I do.

 -Christine Paris