sitting straight up and alone,
half-panting at this dream that seemed to gently shift
her back into this world.

The unending image of her baby-girl
in a baby’s coffin
was now, more real than her toys buried under
dresses and three-year-old photographs.

Her eyes sorely fixed on those words
and the tender strain in her child’s voice,

“Mama, it’s cold in here”
as tears are warm to mother and daughter
in this life and the next

She screams so deep,
tonight so quiet, so deep.
What a dreadful peace for such sleep.

Back to Writing