"Fractured" by RowanArtC
Heart Mom by Renee Emerson
I was her blurred object,
her cradle, tubes clipped to my shirt
so careful. I was a background noise
and the quiz at the end of rounds,
every question a banner over me
of ignorance. I couldn’t draw a heart
if I tried, I tried, I tried. I left
at night sometimes and lay in my bed
by her empty crib. While in the city
a nurse I’ve never met fed her
morphine. The myth is that the wise
woman can save her little ones
from being dashed upon the rocks.
The myth is a handwritten recipe card,
a row of pictures in the basement,
each set against the other, documented
success—I kept the kids alive today.
I can not save a single one.
When the surgeon comes,
I’m asked to leave the room.
her cradle, tubes clipped to my shirt
so careful. I was a background noise
and the quiz at the end of rounds,
every question a banner over me
of ignorance. I couldn’t draw a heart
if I tried, I tried, I tried. I left
at night sometimes and lay in my bed
by her empty crib. While in the city
a nurse I’ve never met fed her
morphine. The myth is that the wise
woman can save her little ones
from being dashed upon the rocks.
The myth is a handwritten recipe card,
a row of pictures in the basement,
each set against the other, documented
success—I kept the kids alive today.
I can not save a single one.
When the surgeon comes,
I’m asked to leave the room.
Renee Emerson is a homeschooling mom of six, and the author of Keeping Me Still (Winter Goose Publishing) and Threshing Floor (Jacar Press). Her poetry has been published in Cumberland River Review, Windhover, and Poetry South. She adjunct teaches online for Indiana Wesleyan University, and blogs about poetry, grief, and motherhood at www.reneeemerson.wordpress.com.
RowanArtC feels that the work should speak for itself and invites the viewers to go wild with their imagination. The world within us (random thoughts and emotions) is a rich spring of inspiration for her work.
