after our daughter’s birth

by Claudia M. Reder

for months I was ill 

from Staph. We lived 

in bed clothes, you nursing and napping, 

and sitting up once in a while.

Months for me to put back together 

the foreign words, ‘mother’

with ‘daughter.’  

Remembering the two of us years ago

seeking the green leaves 

that fed the windows

where we slept, I wasn’t sure

how long I would carry words

for depression or pain,

shadings of language 

misfiring in my mouth.

I had to learn to love you again. 

The warbles and timpani 

of the ocean power my heart,

I set out among the dunes,

the ragged orange of roughened grasses,

mock heather shredding.

Claudia M. Reder is the author of How to Disappear, a poetic memoir, (Blue Light Press, 2019). Uncertain Earth (Finishing Line Press), and My Father & Miro (Bright Hill Press). How to Disappear was awarded first prize in the Pinnacle and Feathered Quill awards.  She was awarded the Charlotte Newberger Poetry Prize from Lilith Magazine, and two literary fellowships from the Pennsylvania Arts Council. She attended Millay Colony, NAPA Writer’s Conference and The Valley. She recently retired from teaching at California State University, Channel Islands. Her poetry manuscript Appointment with Worry was a finalist for the Inlandia Institute Hillary Gravendyk Prize.