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Postpartum Doula • Overnight Newborn Care • Family Support

Close-up of a person's hand resting on their thigh, dressed in black underwear, lying on a white bed.

A still life arrangement with a cactus fruit, a dried seed pod, and pink and white flowers on a beige stone base against a pastel green background.

A bouquet of flowers in a glass vase placed on a kitchen counter, with a stovetop and a mirror or reflective surface in the background.

For the Children

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light

Gary Snyder, No Nature: New and
Selected Poems, Pantheon Books, 1992.

A New Love

All this delight
After all that pain.
All that longing.

The hole in my womb
that I pierced daily
with needles
to make you grow.

Blink.

You're crying out.
Throwing dog food into the air.
All in the air.

Hiiii sun!!

A glorious day,
even on a Monday.

Beep beep,
tweet tweet.

I'm kneeling,
crawling,
remembering nursery rhymes.

I'm ever ready
for your chants.

I thought the never-sleeping
would be the end of me.

Eight pounds forever,
the institutions made me feel.

She was right around the corner.

My intuition.

My mother,
and her mothers beyond.

All the sweetness of you.

I feel inside out.

Unplug me here.

How are my ribs still aching
from your left toe kicking me?

Fresh dreamer
in this new world.

Fastest, slowest time.

I miss it already,

but I'm still here.

tpi, may 2024

18 months of you

Cracked open

Sitting with you in my lap

sweat pulsing down my leg.

Discovering watermelon,

for the first time.

Grasping onto these tiny moments

Freeze time, right here.

We went to pick blueberries and I burst into tears

I used to dream of days like these.

Scooping you up in between the blueberry vines,

your itsy bitsy hands spilling blueberries into my mouth.

Screaming MAMA.

Here, I am.

At last.

tpi, summer 2023

Fetal Demise

I’ve been waiting five days to confirm that

the heartbeat is slowly dying.

Need to confirm.

Waiting for the baby I so longed for

heart to stop beating.

So it can be removed.

My baby is slowly dying inside of me

My boobs are smaller today.

My body exhales once again

of an almost pregnancy.

I’ve been pregnant five of the last tweleve months.

Two of those months waiting

for their tiny hearts to cease to beat.

What are the beats today?

I am counting the wrong way.

Eighty, forty-four, zero?

Awaiting death.

Another ultrasound,

tthe reverse of hope.

Only to be scrapped out.

Sent to a lab.

Tested.

I receive a text telling me

my dead fetus arrived in Ohio.

Am I cursed?

Who was I in another life?

A bad mother?

Are my ancestors watching?

Heartbeat zero.

Another death

of a not quite person.

Again, again, again.

I can’t afford to keep digging

my own grave each month.

Waiting for blood,

a beginning an ending.

Always an ending.

tpi, March 2020

The Birth

By Dorothea Lasky

The birth isn’t about poetry

It is about screaming pain on a Sunday

Hailing a cab and head racing

To the hospital, now so close to the new apartment

I had a baby inside of me

But no one expected it to happen so fast

Or then at least they said they didn’t

Maybe they expected it to happen so fast

All along

Alone in the waiting room I shook and shook

And the blood ran down my legs

Later with the magnesium

I thought of the many permutations of the bald head

Pale, pickling fish skin, glowing with scales

When she came out, she was dark and full of hair

No blood, but born in the caul

Like the other magical realities of my past accomplishments

When she came out she cried and it sounded like me

But passed me, into her new reality

Now 3 weeks later, they say I am still not an erotic object

So I wander the park in the snow with my friend

We light candles and pray to the darkness

We light the park on fire and the police come and find us

When they take us to the jail, I say no, it’s not right

I am a mother after all

They say, but where is your baby

And I say, no no, my baby my baby

They say, yes yes, look at your beautiful baby

I say, I do, I do

Look, look, and listen

My baby my baby

She’s here

Copyright Credit: Dorothea Lasky, "The Birth." Copyright © 2015 by Dorothea Lasky. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow, a partnership between the Poetry Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network.

Source: PoetryNow (PoetryNow, 2015)

For the Children

A New Love

All this delightAfter all that pain.All that longing.

The hole in my wombthat I pierced dailywith needlesto make you grow.

Blink.

You're crying out.Throwing dog food into the air.All in the air.

Hiiii sun!!

A glorious day,even on a Monday.

Beep beep,tweet tweet.

I'm kneeling,crawling,remembering nursery rhymes.

I'm ever readyfor your chants.

I thought the never-sleepingwould be the end of me.

Eight pounds forever,the institutions made me feel.

She was right around the corner.

My intuition.

My mother,and her mothers beyond.

All the sweetness of you.

I feel inside out.

Unplug me here.

How are my ribs still achingfrom your left toe kicking me?

Fresh dreamerin this new world.

Fastest, slowest time.

I miss it already,

but I'm still here.

tpi, may 2024

18 months of you

Cracked open

Sitting with you in my lap

sweat pulsing down my leg.

Discovering watermelon,

for the first time.

Grasping onto these tiny moments

Freeze time, right here.

We went to pick blueberries and I burst into tears

I used to dream of days like these.

Scooping you up in between the blueberry vines,

your itsy bitsy hands spilling blueberries into my mouth.

Screaming MAMA.

Here, I am.

At last.

tpi, summer 2023

Fetal Demise

I’ve been waiting five days to confirm that

the heartbeat is slowly dying.

Need to confirm.

Waiting for the baby I so longed for

heart to stop beating.

So it can be removed.

My baby is slowly dying inside of me

My boobs are smaller today.

My body exhales once again

of an almost pregnancy.

I’ve been pregnant five of the last tweleve months.

Two of those months waiting

for their tiny hearts to cease to beat.

What are the beats today?

I am counting the wrong way.

Eighty, forty-four, zero?

Awaiting death.

Another ultrasound,

tthe reverse of hope.

Only to be scrapped out.

Sent to a lab.

Tested.

I receive a text telling me

my dead fetus arrived in Ohio.

Am I cursed?

Who was I in another life?

A bad mother?

Are my ancestors watching?

Heartbeat zero.

Another death

of a not quite person.

Again, again, again.

I can’t afford to keep digging

my own grave each month.

Waiting for blood,

a beginning an ending.

Always an ending.

tpi, March 2020

All this delight
After all that pain.
All that longing.

The hole in my womb
that I pierced daily
with needles
to make you grow.

You're crying out.
Throwing dog food into the air.
All in the air.

A glorious day,
even on a Monday.

Beep beep,
tweet tweet.

I'm kneeling,
crawling,
remembering nursery rhymes.

I'm ever ready
for your chants.

I thought the never-sleeping
would be the end of me.

Eight pounds forever,
the institutions made me feel.

My mother,
and her mothers beyond.

How are my ribs still aching
from your left toe kicking me?

Fresh dreamer
in this new world.

By Maggie Sm ith