issue 8
// poetry
The Red Panda at the Cincinnati Zoo Is Pregnant with Twins!
by Ashley Kirkland
I didn’t fall into motherhood
as it goes for some. I didn’t float
around and land round in the abdomen.
It was more decided than that. Wasn’t it?
The growth, the waddling, and, finally,
birth, however, not unlike emerging
from earth into the chaos of existence,
our own increasing future.
It seemed I was born and then I birthed,
surrounded by lights, open eyes, hands
that pick and place. Here— there. There
were two. Swirled together inside.
I ate hungrily. Ate for three.
From buckets. From trees. I ate
for the first time. Two emerged. One
still as night, still as my lungs.
There were no small cries from one
mouth, slack without. How do I joy
in the life that moves with the other
sprawled still at my feet?
They took him. There were two.
A litter. I felt them both slip
out into air. My nose to one cub;
paw curled around a berry. A berry.
A cub. A mother. That we are singular
is not the miracle— that we could be more
than ourselves is the miracle. An empty
womb. A cub. A whole basket of berries.
about the author // Ashley Kirkland
| Ashley Kirkland writes in Ohio where she lives with her husband and sons. Her work can be found in Cordella Press, Boats Against the Current, The Citron Review, Naugatuck River Review, ONE ART, HAD, Major7thMagazine, among others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her chapbook, BRUISED MOTHER, is available from Boats Against the Current. She is a poetry editor for 3Elements Literary Review. |
Instagram: @lashleykirklandwriter
