Jessica: Liminality

Jessica Zucker is a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles who specializes in women’s reproductive and maternal mental health. Find her online www.drjessicazucker.com and on Twitter @DrZucker. This poem is republished with kind permission from Jessica and was originally published on the online literary magazine Mothers Always Write.

~~~~~

Are you real, darling?

I study those turquoise pools of curiosity for verification

as they twinkle.

I smell your nascent toes

as you suckle my breasts.

Our breath rhymes as we lay spooned.

When our lips meet, we brighten.

All of this is evidence of you

being real

hearty

here.

Swaddled in health.

Whole.

But how do I know for sure?

Trauma harangued assuredness,

banged it up, bruised it.

Nothing is for certain, it seems.

Loving you so fully

stupefies

reverberations of loss.

Who was the girl who came before,

but isn’t?

If she was,

you wouldn’t be,

confounding.

My Miscarriage

turned me upside down,

though it all looks right-side up

now

from the outside.

Anxiety visits

previously a stranger

unwanted alarm bell

a reminder

not to take life or love for granted.

I yearn for pre-miscarriage me.

Fresh faced, naïve maybe

bucolic burgeoning belly

without reserve

or preoccupation.

Grief grips.

Fifteen months should prove your staying power.

Nevertheless

my mind

wanders

to stormy places.

The trauma of this second trimester loss

lives in me

harnessed me, harasses me

will be here

is me.

Wishing won’t yield change.

I’ll settle on hybridity, even

Re-find. Refined.

Her mommy

is me

this me

inverted

for now, for always.