Said & Meant: Blighted Ovum by Meredith Stewart Kirkwood

Said & Meant: Blighted Ovum

When the doctor said
“a blighted ovum isn’t really a loss”
she meant my daughter
weighed less than
a leaf’s last breath before fall

I meant that made her
more unique
than the doctor’s fingerprint pressed
into the morning fog
of an east-facing windowpane

She meant my uterus was tricked
by an accidental switch
and my body became
a farm feeding food
to the air

I meant a weave of cells
me and not me and now
I am both more and less
and how is that not always
what loss looks like?

She meant a line on a lab report
what can only be known
from a microscope

I meant loving is knowing
and has no size

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Meredith Stewart Kirkwood lives and writes in the Lents neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. Her poetry has been published in The Atlanta Review, The Eastern Iowa Review, Right Hand Pointing, MAYDAY Magazine, and others. meredithkirkwood.net