Womb/Seed/Fruit by Donna Vorreyer

Crying, she cradles the phone against

her neck. Her face betrays the news.

She knows I can provide what others

cannot–empathy, comfort again and

again as the mark of blood shows failure.

Six months later, the faculty meeting

endless, I sneak a glimpse at her growing

belly, firm roundness bursting like an olive

from beneath her green blouse, one hand

poised just above her pimiento of a navel.

My own hand traces the convex curve

of my abdomen, its aging plumpness

comforting, without portent, reminder

that the son I mother ripened on another

branch. She and I have traveled here by

separate roads, pushed our way through

underbrush, pricked our skin on nettles

and thorns. Mothers both, we stand in

the garden, understand what it means to

feed, to bear, to pluck the sweetest fruit.

I live and write in the Chicago area where I drink lots of Diet Coke and spend my days trying to convince teenagers that words matter. My poems have appeared in many journals including New York Quarterly, Boxcar Poetry Review, Flashquake and The Hiss Quarterly. Website: http://djvorreyer.googlepages.com/