The World According to Poetry #8
Confessions of a Barren Woman
By Stephanie Wood Miller © 2019
You may have forgotten
How it feels
To sleep in until to you wake
Or take a trip on the spur of the moment
You may have forgotten
The silence on Sunday morning
Finishing a sentence
Or reading a book without interruption
You may find it shocking
To do laundry once a week
Or dishes once a day
Or shop for food without a list
You may have lost your ability
To treat yourself to a spa night
Or eat ice cream for dinner
Or see a movie that doesn’t star a princess or a robot
You may have stopped dreaming
About writing a novel
Or traveling to India
Or cycling the coast of California
You may envy me
The careless freedom of my life
I may envy you
The poignant smile
As your daughter swings higher in park
As your chest rises to shout for your fleet, running son
But I wouldn’t trade with you
If I am barren
Then you perhaps on overgrown
And neither one us can weight our lives
On another woman’s scale