Babies

Spotting on the beige fabric,

now hanging between her thighs-

as if they were a clothes line, holding up

the war-stained flag of a defeated army.

A months’ fertility dripping away,

yet had she really been able to

imagine a babe heavy in her arms?

Warm head resting in crook

of an elbow. Relief though, is in the

cup of pain felt by every cramp

that grows in her belly. Imagining

the hunger-pained wails, of

a growing chorus, a forest of

babies. Joined together they

make a broken doll mountain,

chubby limbs reach to

the sky, small fingers and toes

she thinks to pop in her mouth

to suck and then coo at softly.

She balls up the tissue in her

fist. More blood wriggles out of

her, splashing the white bowl

below.

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Stephanie Powell is a poet based in London. Her work has been recently featured in the Bacopa Literary Review, The Halcyone, Not very quiet and New World Writing. She grew up in Melbourne, Australia and also works in documentary television.