Poetry | I mother

I mother

so hard my mouth fills in sleep with blood

            worrying the blisters

forcing myself through fish-markets

            that glow with silver headlights

illuminating a body in the field

I mother it, too, 

            the skull fragments recollected

brain matter spooned back in

            wildflowers painted white

while a molting bird circles above us

            cawing Mother, mother

How badly I want to nourish 

            every living thing

gut fish for fish 

mother every other mother

even when I am still

baby teeth

sucking honey from weeds

cupping every wasp

to a cask of sugar-water

shivering fingers through 

cornsilk and cattails

holding a hand to my stomach

and dreaming a baby 

back into my body

I mother so much

            that god unmakes me for motherhood

takes my only one before her teeth

            even form

makes the first the last

            and refracts her through headlights

so that I hope for car-wrecks

            my baby flashing briefly before my eyes

until I approach all roadkill

            clutch bloodied pelts to my chest

and think their bodies can be 

loved back to life

if I, Mother, mother hard enough. 

Megan writes primarily about literature, mental health and queer culture. Talk to her at MLW116@pitt.edu.