We must all join the fight against Maternal and Infant Mortalities. Susan’s poem is one more voice calling for joined up action.
I have seen them, gravid
& walking with the honey heaviness
of mothers round as plums,
ripe & stretched over fullness
& eager to meet what kicks
beneath their hands
they have felt fluttering
in the domes of their bellies,
laughed with those turns
& learned new heartbeats
threading under their own,
a welcome otherness
but here, underneath scars
that tethered us
to our own mothers
a threat blooms alongside hope
this close to life death happens. obscene
how bodies break & empty easy as eggs
even in their fruiting
life is cheap
they say & it must be
if it spends so casually
each lost heartbeat
adds up
counted in pennies
& we keep adding
shiny words explaining loss:
religion, cultural context,
mismanagement
how do you tabulate tears
in actuarial tables
i have numbered the bones
ac-
count-
ability
measured in shoulder shrugs
& head shakes
while a woman
who cradled life
in the bowl…
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Reflections 