After Birth
These poems, (Siblings, Digging, and Reflection,) are a representation of some of the intense emotions I’ve experienced over the past few years, following the stillbirth of our first daughter, Braylie.
Dreamers Reading Room
Stay With Me
They say that life has a way of giving you exactly what you need when you least expect it. That when one life ends, another is born.
Semi Colon
There are days, sometimes weeks, when you don’t even think about it. Then, one day, in front of the bathroom mirror, you face the glaring reminders. Three scars.
Rhythm
“Wake up! Michael’s stopped breathing. We gotta go.” The voice seems familiar, perhaps a childhood playmate’s. I cling to sleep…
Layered Poetry in heft by Doyali Islam
I dream seafloor shells, bones / stirring in walls: forgotten, lithified / things buzzing, buzzing beneath a drone’s wings.
I Can’t Even Get to Hell
After the first of my many cousins died from cancer, the extended family started getting together every August to picnic in Westchester County, New York.
Inside a Ring of Owls
Last night we stood outside and all around us the owls were calling to each other. It felt like a perfect circle and we were standing in the middle.
kindled
This morning, my body unfurls from sleep, soft sheets teasing bare breasts, groin thrumming. Outside my window, a goldfinch whistles and warbles. I laugh aloud. There are miracles in the garden…
Of Shoes, Feet, and Legs
My mother had great legs. She passed them on; Nora has them now. Her shoes were small and wide, like her feet—European feet. She had so many shoes.