Miscarried

    by Jennifer L. Bauman

Fall enters as quickly

as summer exits,

the sun dwindles,

lingers out of habit,

‘cause habits die hard.

I lie on a reclined, stirruped chair,

the paper crinkles,

each movement,

awkward.

The sonographer searches

but comes up empty —

a deep pool with no

bottom,

a circle with no life,

a womb no longer a womb,

an anatomical part.

At dawn we drive to the hospital,

still dark,

the air cool.

Checked in, we wait,

sit side by side,

silent,

like two withdrawn commuters

on a busy train car.

The painful fluorescent lights

expose the room’s realities —

another day,

another patient,

another procedure.

Dizzy on anesthesia

I tumble into nothingness.

I awake alone,

empty,

without you.

For twelve weeks you were there

but not here

(yet)

then you were gone,

nowhere.

I like to think you escaped —

a lone molecule

caught in a warm breeze,

tumbling on a windy day,

then launched

into the sky

only to be born again

on a dark, cloudless

autumn night.

© 2014  Jennifer L. Bauman

Jennifer L. Bauman is a curatorial assistant at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She holds a graduate degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois. Her poetry reviews have been published by Britain’s poetry journal, PN Review, and most recently has contributed to the forthcoming publication, Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art.