Personal History
       

Tell me about the light you have lost.
    It was the breath of my first baby, the one
never taken. The doctor's words, sharp
    as scalpels. Her skin, on my fingertips,
petals of heliotrope. What tools do you need
    to recover? Paper, pen; blood instead of ink.
The pollen of memory clings to my sleeves.
    As small as the wind's shadow, the fleeting
glimpse of her face.

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Copyright © 2019 Barbara Crooker All rights reserved
from Some Glad Morning
University of Pittsburgh Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission