Miscarriage

Gauzy film between
evergreens is a web

of loss. Get closer. Reach
to touch the shimmering

gossamer and your finger
pushes through. Remember

filling that space with desire?
Someone else might grieve

the spider who abandoned
this home; others grow anxious

waiting for a deer’s walk
to wreck it. But you—

you grieve the net of thought
spun inside your own womb:

intricate and glossy and strong.

Copyright © 2024 by Christine Stewart-Nuñez. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 14, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“After each of my four miscarriages, I cataloged the responses I received from others when they heard my news. This poem offers my silent response, so impossible for me to articulate in everyday language when confronted in real life and in real time. In ‘Miscarriage,’ I remind myself that I grieve fictions anchored in the material space of my body. I hope this poem invites readers to story their own grief in ways that bring them solace, however fleeting it may be.”
—Christine Stewart-Nuñez