Miscarriage #3

She cradled all the unborn children.

I sat next to her and watched
my heart slide down with her tears.

I felt her skin peel away,
raw,
into my lap.

She whispered,
So this is Mama’s love.

Grieving

The city is suffocating from the
rolling black anguish seeping through its sky.

Rain streams down, pounding on windows
with flashes and crashes through the night.

Drop by drop, harder and harder,
the wind whips trees, all colours fade.

But bucket after bucket still come
sloshing down after it all washes away.

Bald Bird
in the Chemotherapy Ward

Hair fluttered down,
light as feathers.

But I breathe sky,
she screamed. I chopped off her wings.

Clumps of hair in her sink,
on her hairbrush, her pillow.

She gasped, her face blue,
and clutched at patches of air.

A bald corpse, the bird listened
to the drip of her IV.

Eliana Lorch, Age 16, Grade 11, Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan, Silver Key