From the Closed Cottage Door – Karen Hodgson Pryce
From the Closed Cottage Door by Karen Hodgson Pryce The father drives a tractor. His son, a bobbingbuttercup on his knee. A cheerleading wife,baby on hip. Look! I sayshe’s living my life. A half smile hangs,only half seen by my […]
There is no other Ark – Tara Brown
There is no other Ark by Tara Brown Noah had it goodwhen he built his boat backwhen the world could be purged with a floodthough boats now abound on surging seasthere are wounds running deeper than watercan touch […]
My Inheritance – Hannah Dilday
Content Warning: Death of a parent My Inheritance by Hannah Dilday When I asked if you would get leukemia like your father had, you assured me no and I think you believed yourself. When you found out you had it, you said you never thought this would be the thing to end your life. Your […]
Chance – Maura Holmwood
Chance by Maura Holmwood A child in the park makes my heart ache.In green overalls, she trots, exploresand looks like mine. Ducks, patch of grass, a dog lazing byshe sees for the first time –my heart, it aches. Mother, standing out of the way,gives her space while she learns –with that fearless walk, she looks […]
Childless – Stevie Edwards
Childless by Stevie Edwards A stranger’s pregnant bellyplops over elastic-waisted jeans,and a wish kicks its legsinside me. I wish it would sit still.Forest fires blazethrough Quebec, orangesmoke obscuring the sky of the Mid-Atlantic,ushering in the newnormal: Tyger Tyger,burning bright, burning brushand rushing throughsubdivisions, makingash out of loved lives. Is delivering a childinto the smoldering ofthe […]
Negative – Maura Holmwood
Negative by Maura Holmwood The third line doesn’t appear. It would cut right through;split everythingin two. Days rumble on, monthsare lost,years race by at extortionate cost. The third linedoesn’t appear. Eyes red looking for its outline:it must emerge, it’s the promised sign!The third line doesn’t appear. The knot inside tightens forever,the secret wish will bloom […]
Mothers’ Day – Kendra Whitfield
Content Warning: Abortion Mothers’ Day by Kendra Whitfield Envelop me.Sing voiceless hymns in thevoid between waking and forgetting.Betray me with your stillness,wound me with your song.Wordless grace blesses me,stills me,haunts my womb empty forever but once.Once you were thereI cannot tell what part of me is you anymore,what part of your infinitessimaluniverse resides in me […]
Dandelion Fields – Joanne Macias
Dandelion Fields by Joanne Macias Childhood innocence is whendandelions are plucked from afield, a gift chosen for mum. Their beaming eyes and a smilewhich light their face. You are thereason they stopped their play. Childhood innocence saw beautyin what you considered weeds.Happiness as bright as the petal. Sad, I watch on the sidelines with nodandelions […]
Outline – Craig Dobson
Outline by Craig Dobson Every night, I tuck the childI never had into bed. Tuck it in safe and well,tell it a story and say Sleep Tight! In the morning, when I go to wake it,it’s gone without a trace, as if the dark had taken it, leaving in its placea shape pressed into the sheet, a ghost of […]
Fallow – Helen Finney
Fallow by Helen Finney Fresh grassbruised by bare feetsmells sweetly in the sun, the freckles of flowersscattered amongst the bladesas spikes of seed headsswathe the breeze. This pasture, left fallow,bears its own value,one not to be judged by its yield. About the Poem “There seems to be a lot of judgement towards people, women especially, […]
WYKYK – Chelsea Dodds
WYKYK by Chelsea Dodds I know when I sing along to Matt Maeson in the carwith you next to me and I don’t hold back, don’t use my “shy” singing voice. I know when you rant about how Seth Rogenis raffling off time to talk ceramics and smoke weedwith him, how you’d apply if it were […]
My face won’t be found in folk still to come – Karen Macfarlane
My face won’t be found in folk still to come by Karen Macfarlane My face won’t be found in folk still to comemy shape’s not sculpted in skin and bone. You’ll maybe imagine it’s me you seeat winter twilight in wind-skirled beech leaves or sketched in a swirl of sticks, floatingon the edge of an […]
I want you to know – Helen Rice
I want you to know by Helen Rice I want you to know that sometimes I really did want to have children. And sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes my skin sighed to hold my non-existent babies. And sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes I went to clinics to try and find out why I wasn’t having children and […]
Spawn – Craig Dobson
Spawn by Craig Dobson Full fathom five thy father lies It’s March, but the pond lip’s barethat was full of them when, as a kid,I’d lie, eyeing their gelid stare,trying to fathom that insistence withinwhose hidden spell would breachboth egg and air, corralling those untoldpearls against a new world’s shell. Older-boned, but fatherhood’s been nothing […]
A Breath of Fresh Air – Helen Finney
A Breath of Fresh Air by Helen Finney A breath that lasts a hundred yearsin, outtakes little from the airin, outunless it makes new lungsin, outwhich then make twoin, outand them two eachin, outthen look up what exponential meansin, outas the air runs outin, out. About the Poem “The world population has almost tripled in […]
Clouds in the Attic – Laura Theis
Clouds in the Attic by Laura Theis This poem is best viewed on a computer rather than a mobile device. The clouds have moved in with me overnightlike a family of raccoons but without any of the scrabbling.They are mostly very quiet, only making their soft presenceknown through the occasional indoor drip of rain or unexpected […]
No – Rachel Turney
No By Rachel Turney When I was thirty-four I went to my annual gynecologist appointment. At the end he asked me ifI had thought about freezing my eggs.“No.”“Do you want to have children?”“No.”“Because you could freeze your eggs. I can give you some information.”“No!” About the Poem “It was this doctor’s appointment that showed me […]
a lesson in rosewood – Laura Theis
a lesson in rosewood by Laura Theis today we are sadmy non-existent daughtersays and squeezes my dry handwith her sticky one I nod and smile butshe shakes her perfectnon-existent head of curls andtells me to smile more sadly when I obligewith a quivering lipa quiet stream of tearsshe still isn’t satisfied no no like thislook […]
If Given the Chance – Taylor Kovach
If Given the Chance By Taylor Kovach $230 Deposit Offspring scaling mountainous arm stringsOnto my protectively broad shouldersSledding down elder spine tree terrainJumping, exhilarated pleas of “again, again” Clasps onto soft miniature handsHelicoptered cadets twirling aboutExploring Pluto’s windbitten orbitGiggles of pure guttural joy, absolutely precious To leave a legacy of “look what I did Daddy!” […]
The Prospect – Lynn Valentine
The Prospect By Lynn Valentine And I might have wrapped himin linen, showed him off to his cousins;made him fat and languid with my milk. I’d carry him out to the fields, restan hour among the clover, the wild violets,the tormentil. I’d watch him laughalong with fall of water from the hills. But the loom […]
Conversations – Rachel Turney
Conversations By Rachel Turney I don’t have to have children to be a woman.You know that right?I had to ask again.You know that right? About the Poem “This is a recounting of a conversation I had a few years ago. It’s disappointing to me how intertwined ideas of womanhood and motherhood are in society, especially […]
The Garden of Remembrance – Janina Aza Karpinska
The Garden of Remembrance By Janina Aza Karpinska She steadies the weight of corrugated iron above the compost heap with upraised arm. Her solid-limbed body – shapeless in wedge-heeled shoes and grey shift dress. Puts out tulips like the dying embers of a wood-fire in suburbia; adding to flower-cemetery’s final remains the yellow iris, freesias […]
Children are the best things to happen to you – Maggie Mackay
Children are the best things to happen to you by Maggie Mackay my father’s words to me, aged 10 What he said startled me,a compliment I didn’t get at the time. Sorry to disappoint you, Daddy;you knew I’ve a wilful mind,you were proud of my muckle moo. I’m no witch, to be persecuted,though there is […]
Relics – Lynn Valentine
Relics by Lynn Valentine Up into the attic that was never thereto find a cradle of mislaid bones,a doll or two – dusty with unplaying. A newspaper with an ancient date,baby of the week photo keeking out, and among the eaves a shawlcrocheted with cobwebs. Beyondthe skylight – a geometry of wings. About the Poem […]
My never-child – Susan Jordan
My never-child by Susan Jordan I imagine you pushing your way out,landing on the strange planetof my exhausted body, eyes shutagainst the world’s harsh light. I would have held you, fed youwith myself, my cradling handhuge around you, my nipplesdark with motherhood. Would I have wanted you?Would love have alighted on uswithout effort, or would […]
Christening photo – Damaris West
Christening Photo by Damaris West I might have been there but I shied away. This is a moment frozen for all time:infant asleep and mother contemplatingthe peaceful face. So thisis what I carried, this what caused mepain and stitches, this the reason, this the fruitof all my labour – treasure, burden, duty, joy,weight and wings […]
Little Stabs – Cáit O’Neill McCullagh
Little Stabs by Cáit O’Neill McCullagh My surgeon says she will make of me Sashiko,use ‘little stabs’ & patch the worn cloth of my bellywith tender decoration. She traces a line;sternum into the softness of me. It is, I imagine, a soothe for a sleepless child.Her finger crescents my navel, preservesthe umbilicus, as if it […]
Omission – Janina Aza Karpinska
Omission by Janina Aza Karpinska Their clothes – still packed in drawers:primrose on damson, lavender on peach;and the tiny box for the loss of milk teeth. Their stories – incomplete,leaving empty pages in albums arranged in tiers on bookshelves […]
Dear Unborns – Rachael Clyne
Content Warning: Abortion Dear Unborns by Rachael Clyne The first time – pinned against tree roots he shoved into meclaimed my price fora cheap Bolognese. I utteredthe women’s pleato St. Rita […]
Neonatal Baby Blanket – Ali Rowland
Content Warning: Description of neonatal care Neonatal Baby Blanket by Ali Rowland You won’t remember this. It’s soft, pastel yarn,no holes to catch your see-through fingersthat grasp the air you came too early intofrom your double-heart-beat haven, in the dryacrylic bubble. Is it tucked around you, taking your scent,becoming your familiar? One day,someone will lift […]
Violet – Nicole Louie
Violet by Nicole Louie I didn’t know that I too wanted her until now– waking up from a dream where she climbs me like a tree.Her curly golden locks caressing my shoulder,her tiny hands and a big sense of humor. She’d be an artist, no doubt.Brushing away my sadness,just like her dad,while running around. About […]
Gift – Sam Burns
Gift by Sam Burns Sometimes I pictureyour daughter placing your firstborn grandchildin your empty lap and it drives me tothe cookbooks, the pens, the lab, the easel.I have nine short months. What can I make youto outshine her gift? Published in Un(mother) by Growing Poetry, 2021
There Will Be a Day When You Meet Yourself at the River’s Edge – Terhi K Cherry
There Will Be a Day When You Meet Yourself at the River’s Edge by Terhi K. Cherry in a deep pocket of mountains,agave sprouting along the sandy ridges;carrying a box, wrapped in a cloth,the ashes of a picture of how you dreamt your child,a confession, how you need to let this pass;watching crows catch each […]
Spayed – Susan Darlington
Spayed by Susan Darlington There’s a button of pink skinthe size of a baby’s thumbnailin the middle of her chest from where she’s plucked furto line the nest she’s been buildingwith single-minded focus for days now. She’s piled straw from the hutchinto the corner where it’s warm and dark,a place where hope sleeps undisturbed. Blinded […]
The Lost Child – Lynn Valentine
The Lost Child by Lynn Valentine Your shadow darkens on the flap of the tent,summoned in nylon and mushroom breath. A pigtail hangs long on your back, mimicking mine.I want to take your hand, say daughter, daughter. Repeat daughter, daughter.Say the words until the air becomes you. Daughter, daughter, I had a namefor you. I […]
Shoulda Woulda Coulda – Jo Gilbert
Shoulda Woulda Coulda by Jo Gilbert I need you to know, there’s nothingyou should do, if you don’t want to.The shoulda woulda coulda code doesn’t exist, it’s a myth.Stone tablet commandmentsare made to be smashed.If someone tells you otherwise, say: what’s it gotta do wit you/shut it/fuck off/mind yer own bizniss**delete as appropriate. Published in […]
Choices – Wendy Mundy
Choices by Wendy Mundy I want you to know that you may not actually know whether you want children or not.Changing thoughts, external pressures, broody feelings, that ‘ticking clock’.I want you to know that whatever you decide is OK. If the choice is taken from you, infertility is a cruel burden to bear. Even more […]
I Want You To Know – Leanne Moden
I Want You To Know by Leanne Moden I am not defined by the absence. Absence implies lack, implies need, implies want. But I amnot defined by what I […]