Miscarriage Ghazal by Tatiana Johnson-Boria

"there are no answers for the way the spirits guide us to mother"

Miscarriage Ghazal

by Tatiana Johnson-Boria

It feels as if we’ve come from empty, the portal is a mother.
The dark of the cosmos grant us breath, the origin’s mother.

The babies before the babies before earth’s beginning suckled 
stardust, shaped themselves of clay, resisting hands of a mother.

The unborn are Gods, born outside of the mind, the skin, the womb.
The most mortal of us nurture their leaving, still—forever mothers.

They cry with us, laugh our lungs free from grieving their going.
They watch us, hold us, soothe us, carry our heavy, becoming our mothers.

The desires stay swallowed, pressed against the soft spot of the cheek 
tend to the body, test the blood, wait and wait, wonder how to mother.

The body is a mystery, no, the miracle cannot be fathomed, 
there are no answers for the way the spirits guide us to mother.

There was once a baby blossoming my womb alive, she called me
her Mother, drank of me, loved of me, she left me, a mother.

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Read our interview with Poet of the Week, Tatiana Johnson-Boria, in which she discusses motherhood identity in poetry. About this, she says:

“Having a baby in my body was one of the strangest, disturbing, uncomfortable, and beautiful events of my life. It feels impossible to explain, especially since every body has a different experience with pregnancy. Yet, I feel like this experience was so shattering that I lost all language for how to express the experience. It is legitimately a time warp, like you’re holding the beginning of a life, and your own life.”