Editor’s Choice

Child Interrupted

    by Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas

I can almost see your face through

the tiny swell in my belly

where you grew sweet like sugar

leaves in the fattened pulp of your human

incubator, where I recited prayers

to freckled skin with no response

save the undulation of an occasional

flutter as if your answer came in the form

of hiccups or tiny spasms granting

reply beneath pulled flesh, until

your accidental fruition, when you arrived

with no warning; an embryonic

treasure that cut a swath through my

heart as you found your way to glory

the day you were nearly born.

© 2012  Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas

Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas is a six-time Pushcart nominee and Best of the Net nominee.  She has authored eight chapbooks along with her latest full-length collection of poems: Epistemology of an Odd Girl, newly released from March Street Press.  She is a recent winner of the Red Ochre Press Chapbook competition for her manuscript “Before I Go to Sleep.”  According to family lore, she is a direct descendent of Robert Louis Stevenson.