TRAGIC Poem: Anastasia, by Murphy Carpenter

Look at it she says with a firm but gentle voice, you will feel better if you look at it.

I knew in my heart and in that moment, whatever blood and tissue or perfect baby girl lay on that cold steel table would get no acknowledgement from me.

I desperately pressed my face away, against that same cold steel, I could feel the tears pooling on my cheeks and my legs straining against the stirrups.

The joy we felt just weeks earlier, when the plate on my full belly danced as she explored her secret world.

Anastasia, curly red hair, big blue eyes and a future of endless possibilities.

Syphilis the Doctor gently murmured as he stroked my hand when the quickening stopped.

After that, I found myself at the hospital on the Gulf where all the poor girls go.

I should have hated the man I married.

I should have left.

I should have listened to my family and his and never married him to begin with.

However, his training was ironclad before I was on the shores of the Gulf.

Cut off from anyone who had ever loved me.

3 AM wake up calls when the clerk was too friendly or I smiled at a random stranger.

Always known for my strength my moxy and my humor before I met him.

It took three years for his family to call my parents and explain that I would not survive.

I bundled up my new son and went home.

40 years later secure and happy with the man I love.

I console my friend as she gives me the details of her daughter’s miscarriage.

With tears in her eyes she ask, “How do you get over something like that”

With no confidence in my voice, I say, “You just do”.