November 14, 2024

Miscarriage

Christine Stewart-Nuñez

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.

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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

Christine Stewart-Nuñez is the author of seven poetry collections, including The Poet & The Architect (Terrapin Books, 2021) and Bluewords Greening (Terrapin Books, 2016), winner of the 2018 Whirling Prize from Etchings Press. Stewart-Nuñez served as South Dakota’s poet laureate from 2019 until 2023. She teaches at the University of Manitoba and lives in Winnipeg.

The Poet & The Architect
(Terrapin Books, 2021)

“The Miscarriage”
by Dorothea Lasky
read more

“Poem with No Children In It”
by Claire Wahmanholm

read more

Thanks to Laura Tohe, author of Tséyi’/Deep in the Rock (University of Arizona Press, 2005), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read or listen to a Q&A about Tohe’s curatorial approach and find out more about our Guest Editors for the year.

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"Miscarriage" by Christine Stewart-Nuñez

Miscarriage

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