After Winter Solstice
By Sally Bliumis-Dunn
Because you are pregnant the days grow rounder with light, long oaks bend towards each other as through a glass orb— loose blouses like snow drifts. I wish I had sung to you more when you were inside me, carried you less like the marriage I knew was failing. I wish I could’ve kept my mind in the same place as my body. This year the winter will not drag on. I will measure the slowly accruing light in your changing form. Who knows what settles as I watch you slice the peaches. Maybe a future entomologist’s fingers are finding their first meticulous rhythm. Maybe the delicate register of your child’s voice is gathering its notes.
Sally Bliumis-Dunn's poems have been published in Paris Review, Poetry London, Plume, SWWIM Every Day, and Poets.org, among others.
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Love Sally's poetry, and this is esp. moving. Thank you for posting!
What a lovely poem. The weaving of past and future in quiet expectation. And I can't remember reading another one where a mother comments on a daughter's pregnancy.