Divided
I never knew you personally,
just as a small, quiet echo
that had briefly moved within me
and just as quickly was gone,
here just long enough
for a recorded heartbeat,
a video in tandem with your sister,
squirms, wriggles, and gentle thumps,
a prayer, a wish, and a hope.
I knew you as a reflection of her,
never as the unit you were meant to be,
never to hear “ohh, they’re so beautiful,”
they, the duality, mirrored and identical.
Here so briefly, and gone.
Made me cry–again.
Thank you for all of the responses–it really meant a lot to me to wake up and see this.
Starts in a way that is both quiet and powerful. Ending leaves something to be desired, but a great beginning
Elyssa, this is part of the story of the death of one of my twin daughters inside me, after which I carried both of them, one alive and one dead, for another ten weeks. Forgive me if the ending “leaves something to be desired.” Perhaps this poem is a bit better:
Stilled
Gel was smeared on my swollen
belly and paddles were placed
over the bodies of my babies.
One girl squirmed and wriggled,
warm and vibrant in her world.
The technician’s face fell, then
froze as she pushed the paddles
firmly into my belly and searched
for two heartbeats, confirmation
of continuing life and growth within.
She found just one beating heart
below my own. Saying nothing,
she left the room and found the doctor,
as I stared at the image of two babies,
one silent on the screen by her sister.
She swayed to the racing rhythm
of my own aching heart, a semblance
of life bumping her tiny body listlessly
against my inner belly, while I vaguely
registered the doctor’s bedside voice.
His practiced demeanor conveyed
suspected truth, droned on in a background
mutter, until strangled words finally
emerged from the frozen hole that
was now my heart: “Please, just take me home.”
Or maybe this one has a better ending:
The List Maker
In the chaotic cacophony of
every day, a list used to calm
me, bring order to
one small event–a concise,
dense packet of
information, focused layers
crossed off step by step, my
world in ten lines or less.
Twenty years gone, and
still I’m haunted by
lists that encompass the
birth of my girls, thoughts
logically ordered, progress
to the goal:
two healthy babes,
brought home.
Two lines on a test
led to two beating hearts
in my rounding belly, and a
joyful list:
2 cribs
2 infant car seats
2 high chairs
2 albums, and one
tandem stroller.
Twenty weeks along,
forty centimeters
circumference,
contractions controlled
day by day by
2 small pills, and one
easy chair to hold
day and night
one frightened me.
Counting contractions
hour by hour
in a list of
day after day,
2 liters of amniotic
fluid drawn away by
one large needle
through my belly
close by my girls
to keep contractions
at bay.
Until one day the
contraction count stops
no more days to account
on that list. The
ultrasound showed
one beating heart,
and another one stilled,
one girl there,
one girl gone away.
I returned home to
my joyful list, to
savagely scratch
out 2’s and s’s, no
need for plurality now:
crib
infant car seat
high chair
album
stroller
No longer believing
my lists
can ever
control my world,
one lovely girl
where there used to be
two,
one gone,
baby
gone.
Please consider in your commentary that many of the poems posted have intense personal meaning for the poet.
Emotional!
Thank you.
This must have been very challenging to write. I know this story and the heart break from which it comes and I feel all of the pain of it all the way through…especially in the ending – especially in the ending.
Thank you, love, that means so much to me. It’s probably not the best written version of this story of mine, as I was really tired at this point, but hopefully I can improve it in revisions.
You always take on the hard things to write about. In this one, your motherly instincts and affection for both daughters is moving and persuasive. Those who underestimate this bonding between mother and unborn child are ,well, unimaginative or uninformed. The writing is good because it is clear and direct as to your feelings without being clinical in details the way the explanation is. We can figure it out. You will certainly want to write about this at greater length in both prose and poetry and see how they go together and complement each other, as they do in the discussion here.