When the tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma on May 20, nine children died in the Plaza Towers Elementary School. I’ve been thinking about their parents, especially the mothers who bore them — and trying to imagine the void. And the more I think, the more the whole battery of recent losses crowd in on my mind — Newtown, Boston, Philadelphia, my own church. I wrote this for those mothers — perhaps all the mothers who’ve lost a child.

The Jagged Void

Tomorrow morn
      The sun will shine.
But this sharp thorn
      Will still be mine —

This jagged void
      Where you were born,
Sharply deployed
      When you were torn

From me—and yes,
      An arrow, shorn,
As if, roseless,
      It could adorn

This womb. My lot
      To curse? Forsworn.
Yet will I not
      Tomorrow mourn?