Helen Bowie

Fruitful

at the end of it all they told me that you / were a cluster of cells, nothing more / while I had
you, everything but you / was a cluster of cells, where I was / held / close /and I loved you
from year / zero / tolerance / the language of policing /applied to my body / and yours /
forbidden / fruits / don’t drink / don’t smoke / don’t stand / don’t sit / don’t paint the nursery /
don’t don’t don’t / don’t eat the forbidden / fruit / on a chart marks the weeks / 4 poppy
seed / 5 apple seed / 6 sweetpea // you were a sweetpea when i met you and you’ll always
be a sweet pea / 7 blueberry / 8 raspberry / 9 green olive / 10 prune / 11 lime / sharp / sour
/ 11 lime / 11 lime / 11 lime / forbidden fruit / grows no more//

Image description, miscarriage maze: There is a large black picture of a maze puzzle; several of the routes from the entrance to the centre are blocked with red slashes.

The red slashes appear again before each line of the poem, indicating that these words are the reasons the routes are blocked.

The text in the image reads:

Navigate your way from accident and emergency to the early pregnancy assessment unit.

Accident and emergency

Early pregnancy assessment unit

\A premonition of an unknown love
\No partners beyond this point
\Complete the heart defeated
\Bated breath in unformed lungs
\Tragedy makes no appointment
\Gatekeeper to my womb
\Fecundity in turmoil
\Gatekeeper to my soul

I bury the emptiness 
of my womb in the fullness 
of stomach. Devour the pain in 
chunks, buttered sugar rolling around 
my mouth so bitter words can’t escape. 
I am toasting a pitta when the message arrives. 
She has a bun in the oven, and I am no longer hungry. 

Image description, Daughters of Gaea is presented title first, in black text on the image’s light grey background. The body of the poem follows, each line of text darker than the last, from barely distinct from the background to black. The poem reads as follows:


Permanence. inferno. punishments enacted on people stuck in limbo
And when I promised to love you to death
Did I mean until the natural end
A dance of decay. decadence
of time-or somehow mean
to bring about the death
in the asphyxiation
of love. in utero.
suffocation of
wanting. the
strangle
hold of
holding
on

What becomes
of the Godless
Goddess?

Hi, I'm Helen Bowie (they/she). I'm a writer and charity worker. I used to do comedy theatre, but then the pandemic hit and the venues closed, and nothing felt very funny anyway. Now I mostly write about trauma and fried food. Sometimes both at once. I'm sharing a selection of poems about a miscarriage, and it took a lot of self restraint not to include an apology for doing so. 25% of pregnancies end this way, so if these poems resonate with you, you are not alone and you have nothing to apologise for. Follow me on twitter @helensulis.