Body and Blood

Body and Blood

            for A.J.

In wedding white I lift laughing lips

to rain, dance my daughter across

grass green and lush and luminous

beneath grey skies and my heart cracks

with the weight of sorrow and

love.

In the shower blood

like rivers rages down my legs

till I stand in a sea of scarlet—

my own flesh and blood. Stooping

I gather him, cradle his tiny pink body

in my palm, gaze awed at arms, legs,

spine, dark spots for eyes, earbuds,

nostrils—all of him

smaller than the tip of my

thumb—and still the blood

flows.

Later we will wrap him in a cloth,

close him in a tiny tin, bury him

beneath the grass where we danced,

where rain and tears mingle with laughter

and my heart will crack

again. No one told me

how the heart breaks

and breaks and

keeps on breaking,

how love

is like death, only

stronger.

The exquisite featured image is from Julie Jablonski and used with her permission for Cultivating and The Cultivating Project. We are grateful and rejoice in celebrating her beautiful work.

K.C. Ireton

K.C. Ireton is the author of The Circle of Seasons: Meeting God in the Church Year and Cracking Up: A Postpartum Faith Crisis. An avid reader, she is especially fond of old books and home-schools her four children so that she can spend her days reading and learning all sorts of interesting things. K.C. is pleased as punch to be writing for The Cultivating Project!

kcireton.com