enjoy this Linda M. Crate writing
in the free 2016 PDF file chapbook: If Tomorrow
Never Comes
(click on the front cover image or the
title text to download the free PDF file)
a mother’s sorrow
Linda M. Crate
i first
became suspicious of you
when i started
craving steak because i’ve never
liked it before you,
but now
it’s become a staple i cannot forget;
and i remember speaking to
your father of names
but he said not to
“name it”
as if you weren’t a being or individual but rather
something i could forget or destroy—
i remember lying about the
miscarriage and insisting my period had
come back,
and the joy that it brought your father
which disgusted me
all the more;
i remember carrying this secret within my bones
for so long i thought it would break me
until i told a few friends
who said the same thing:
“this was a blessing in disguise” —
but children are always
a blessing,
and i would have loved you
more than anyone in this world could have;
and we’d thrive even if it meant
never knowing the man who destroyed me more
than anyone before him.