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1.

One baby died inside me but it wasn’t really a baby.

Blood came out of me at odd times. I didn’t tell Dominic.

We had an idea that we didn’t mean to have and just as it

slipped into focus it collapsed. 

I would have called him Cato if he was a boy.

I would eat better.

If I could I would swallow a whole maternity ward of doctors and nurses

and an E.R. floor full of staff and equipment.

I would swallow great gallons of music to help him float and then I would

swallow my fear and my pride and swallow anything the doctors who I swallowed might prescribe.

And if she seemed bored I would swallow thirteen short books a day to keep her entertained.

And I’d let him decide what else we wanted to eat.

2.

If I were an unborn baby I might be able to whisper and I might be able to

make petals spell out mysterious words like CONCRETE and TURBULENCE.

I might be able to make a person yank the steering wheel of their car as they

come to a blind corner so that they just miss the cyclist who has been pushed

out of his lane by the wind. Or maybe I could push a cyclist, like the wind, testing

my might, not thinking of the car that could be coming and cause a collision

that yanks upon the strings of the heart

I could have had.

If I were an unborn baby I would choose the power to never have been

anything, not an inkling in a mind, not a tiny droplet of ink lingering on a

page, fanning out at the edges gently like a wave. If I were an unborn baby I

would not be one at all.

3.

I wrote out a list of everyone I knew who had died but it seemed dramatic

and perverse so I folded it up very small and hid it underneath my socks.

Today, tipping out my sock drawer to throw out the pairs that leak heels and

toes, I find my list and opening it discover a perfect crease scored through

every single name as though they have been crossed out.

Phoebe Smith

Phoebe lives in Wellington and works a couple of horrible jobs. Her poetry has previously been published in Turbine and JAAM.