The third line doesn’t appear.
It would cut right through;
split everything
in two.
Days rumble on, months
are lost,
years race by at extortionate cost.
The third line
doesn’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 – never.
The third line does not appear.
“The pregnancy tests I was used to taking were the kind where there is one line to confirm the test worked, and in another window a minus or a plus sign to indicate the result. The ‘third line’ being the vertical line of the plus sign, cutting through the minus sign. No matter how focused my stare, it never appeared.”
Maura Holmwood is a pen name. Children never happened for me, partly due to unhealthy relationships, partly through choices that led to different priorities in life. I don’t know how painful that really is for me each day, and am not ready for conversations with friends and family based on the sense of loss in these poems. I have published in poetry magazines and studied writing at MA level. Thank you for connecting with my work.