To the Stillborn

TO THE STILLBORN / Peter Cooley Too soon now this grief will have passed from me. I will wake up tomorrow, the day after, and my roaring will be the hills laying themselves down in gold on the evening, empurpled, no longer. No longer the dogwood my moan at first light, nor the redbud my weeping, not branch by branch as they draw the sky down to their falling. On a morning ordinary as steam rising from my coffee trawling the night after it and the nights before, gnashing and tossing, you will abandon me suddenly— this anguish, was it too great enthroning me, crowning me, sceptre in hand, for you to—bow down? Today I take my pain again into my own hands here, unroll it— a scroll? The script is too tiny. I like not being able to read it. Now I put in on, strut about wearing my hairshirt. How I love the hurt! When you reach wherever you're going that morning you will have shaken me off, immortal. Little one, no name, you will no longer be my daughter. 16 · The Missouri Review ...