Annie Marhefka

Content warning: miscarriage/infant loss

still, birth

you imagine it's a slow bleed
a movie slo-mo captured gush of placenta 
and fetus and cord and ruby lipstick red
but it's rather drawn out like a swollen drop
of frozen rain at the tip of an icicle
on the edge of the gutter
                                     hanging 
             on the 
                    precipice

its slipperiness bubbling up, bloating
before losing its grip and sliding
                               down
                                       your
                                                 cervix

it's just the one drop 
at first, unexpected, 
                      a soft, pretty pink tinge,       lingering
on your double ply
don't panic don't panic don't panic
the midwife says nothing to do but
                            wait

                                   it
                                             out.

another drip of the thawing crystal cone
and another
                        drip
                              drip
                                    drip

and when it finally releases
from that guttural uterine wall
it does not crash out of you
it does not shatter
     into tiny 
    d  i  a  m  o  n  d  s 

it oozes, a torturous melting
   seeping through the body
not an ejection
         but a 
                 birth


Ode to My Prepartum Body

Remember when you used to dance
on tabletops, blonde hair swinging
across the top of your shoulders and hips
swaying with rhythms of alt rock and
unsteady hand holding a glass,
a little rum and coke and lime spilling 
over the rim.

Remember when you flaunted
perky breasts and rounded buttocks,
one knee bent, ninety-degrees of toned
muscle and sun-licked hue
flipping on your beach towel like pancakes,
the tiny, crystal grains of sand 
a welcome accessory.

Remember when your lips, slick with
love and tinted gloss and passion
pressed into his and you knew
this was it, this was to be the hand yours held
for always, to be the father of your babes 
and the other to your
significance.

Remember when you carried her inside,
nine months of tiny skull pressing on bladder
tiny feet kicking at aching ribs after
they told you that you weren’t capable,
didn’t have the right eggs for it, didn’t have the 
fertile genes your mother had, but then you
proved them wrong.

Remember when your hips reached outwards
and your breasts firmed up with milk
and your feet outgrew those ballet flats you loved
and the skin on your belly stretched
across the tiny being inside, twisting,
morphing, creating placenta and cord and 
sweet daughter.

Remember that, if not for that metamorphosis
I wouldn’t have this little
mirror image peeking around the front door
smiling my familiar smile;
maybe one day she, too, will dance
on tabletops, watch as her hips transform
into a mother’s ovarian bookends.

I loved you then; what times we shared
together, what summer follies, splashing
in the waves and singing karaoke.
I love you now; what miracles we’ve grown
in this garden of structured stems and curvy
petals and such a perfect set 
of ovaries.

Annie Marhefka is a writer in Baltimore, Maryland. She delights in traveling, boating on the Chesapeake Bay, and hiking with her toddler. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Coffee + Crumbs, The Phare, Sledgehammer, Capsule Stories, Cauldron Anthology, The Elpis Pages, For Women Who Roar, and The Hallowzine. Annie is working on a memoir about mother/daughter relationships; you can find her writing on Instagram @anniemarhefka, Twitter @charmcityannie, and at anniemarhefka.com.