Hard things have come up
and I have had to deliver them
from the middle of my mouth
into the cold air;
they kick and strain at a silent squall,
and suddenly they are noisy and no longer wholly mine
as they reach another’s ears.
But what is growing inside me now,
binary-inflexible,
cannot be reduced or compressed,
stretched or rearranged or parsed
in preparation for its approaching appointed time,
a time I will not be allowed to choose,
the moment I will gather myself behind it
and push with one last desperate push
and utter in a gush at the end of my breath
to an empty room
“Please stay with me now”

Claudia Shepard

 

Claudia Shepard is a retired psychiatrist from Winston-Salem, NC who enjoys regaling her friends with her brilliant ideas and unusual turns of phrase. She is a harpist, singer, and caretaker of two aged dogs.

© 2017