Stones in the Absence of Motherhood

By Anya Kirshbaum

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Now I am on my knees,

                        my skirts lifted and I am starring at the foggy sea-air, 

            and now I am this shiver of salty water, 

this tide-pool, this handful of asters dropped on the sand. 

            Another month’s blood past—

I look for my face along the waterline—jasper, agate, a peculiar 

            round umber. 

                        Now I am this black stone, carved, curved, smooth as a bowl, 

hollow as a hip-bone, now 

            this torn and bright blossom of yellowed kelp,

                        this briny-sea-rose. I was almost a vessel. 

I swirl, I swerve—oceanic blue into the watercolor of ember-smoked sky. 

            And now I am lifted, as though I could fly 

                        into the seam where fire meets sea, the sun rapturing her way 

            into gravity. I was almost a vessel. I am almost

an offering. Until the sealark rims the shore

                        crying—here is a parachute, come down, 

            calling—no baby here, come down.

In my hands these wet stones—

            this heart-ache ship, this titanic—a spiny pottery 

                        half floating, half sunken, bone-pretty— 

            still smoldering.

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Anya Kirshbaum (she/her) is a queer poet and somatic therapist living in Seattle, Washington. Her work has appeared in The Comstock Review, Cirque, MER-Mom Egg Review, Crannóg, and Solstice Literary Magazine, among others. She was a finalist for the New Millennium Writing Awards, and was the recipient of the 2023 Banyan Poetry Prize.

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