“Maternity” by Sue Churchill
My daughter has a job interview
so I am bargaining with God
recklessly trading away all pearls
of happiness, the ones I sought so long
in the dark depths, holding my breath
to bursting.
It’s not just one or two I concede,
it’s all and any and ever.
I throw in the ewes,
the lambs I looked for early and late,
the one I fished for in the wet darkness
of the mother, its clammy form
a lump of death, then quickened like Lazarus.
She can go, I decree, without hesitation.
But I give a backward look at that one—
clambering through a gap in the gate
her mother on the other side, bleating, bleating, bleating.
From *Toward the Fold Poems* by Sue Churchill, copyright 2020, Reprinted by permission of Workhorse Press.
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Sue Churchill Artist Statement:
Sue Churchill is a poet and farmer who raises sheep on Thistle’s End Farm
near Lexington, Kentucky. Sue’s poems reflect her rural life and
fascination with the complex and often heartbreaking natural world. Her
chapbook, *Toward the Fold *was published by Workhorse Writers in 2020.
Her work has also appeared in *Literary Accents, biography, jelly bucket
and the Appalachian Review.*
