My baby, my baby

When someone says, "Mom," my body turnsbefore I can stop it.

Hope is a reflex.

A crying child is placed in my arms."You're so good with them."

And I am.

I sway without thinking.

Patience pours from melike milkfrom a body that cannot make it.

I can quiet a stranger's babybut not the griefinside my own ribs.

There is a child I mournwho never had a heartbeat.

my baby, my baby.

I want to create someone—to watch their lashes darken,to trace the map of my husband's smileon a smaller face.

I want to kneel beside scraped kneesand tell them they are safe.

To braid gentleness into their hair.

I want to watch them become,to see what kind of humanwe would make.

Would they feel too much, like me?Would they rescueevery wounded thing they saw?

I want to witness their empathy bloom,to grow older beside them.

Instead, I wake from dreamswhere I am called "Mom," reaching for my childwho isn't there.

My womb is quietlike an abandoned house,

a doorbell that has never been rung.

The body I trusted—locked,with no key,

no living proofof the love that should have made something that breathed.

I carry a mother's heartwith empty arms.

Some daysthat is the heaviest thingI have ever held.