
On Our Way to the Fertility Clinic
We're up before the sun, disturbing the lawn's crisp blanket of leaves as we drag ourselves to the car. Our street is dark, hushed, cold, though the day promises to shake off its chill, blossom into some warm October afternoon. I have no mother and I am not a mother. The keen prick of this is not unlike the needle's bite as it enters my vein—another test. Grief is no stranger. I know what it is to long for someone you loved fiercely. But this is new: an ache for one who has not yet been. The sky is black, cloudless. I clutch a travel-mug of coffee; my husband carries a paper bag with drops of himself inside. (I know darling, did I have to mention your ejaculate in a poem? But it was there, and so were you, and so were the stars, impossibly bright.)
3 replies on “On Our Way to the Fertility Clinic”
What a beautiful and accurate capturing of the experience.
Poignant and stirring.
I especially love the final parenthetical stanza.