Heather Truett

From Inside the Empty Nest

Already breaking, baby forced out of the wet, the warm

vessel, shattered chrysalis, cramped cage of

exit. Son born bearing  absence, my sharpening

shards, sticky stings of darkness sinking into

him, afterbirth burst blossoms of nowhere, ripped

seams. Some mothers are feral— by instinct, lost inside—

They eat their young. I eat slivers I can’t silver the lining, this storm

of a body broken, lick of tearless sleep, sister singing

the baby clean, tongue slicing lullabies into the hollow where

bleeds a bitter wound. I am a grave. Excavated belly a world

It grew despite me. Dragged me. Cracked a white light star blazing before blackness—

ceramic, child hands molded clay— Night cannot mother me

back together, solder, glue, mosaic me like memory, needle

shards stuck to skin, fit the fabric of my own nurturing

one against another, quiet while I stitch, while I quilt

disaster – kintsugi. Battered  when wings crack open,

birth, green growth, water I fly

Heather Truett holds an MFA from the University of Memphis and is a PhD candidate at FSU. Her debut novel, KISS AND REPEAT, was released from Macmillan in 2021. She has work in Thimble, Hunger Mountain, Sweet, Whale Road Review, Jabberwock, and others. Heather serves on staff for Beaver Magazine and is an editor emeritus for The Pinch. Find out more at www.heathertruett.com.