Rebirth by Ellen Austin-Li

Rebirth

It wasn’t an immediate awakening
after I had my first child, but a gradual

dawning, the way the night’s black sky lightens
to silver before hints of the sun appear

above the horizon, sooner than the streaks of gold
rising. There was the morning I woke

to a silent house, an empty crib. The gone baby,
removed by my husband for one night

not enough to pull me out of the chaos
of blackout drinking. The void of not knowing

what I had said, what I had done, how
the house could have burned down

with my son in it. The light entered
with my child’s return, and I added one

sober day to another, until I could remember
the sunrise and my need to see it.

*

Ellen Austin-Li’s debut poetry collection, Incidental Pollen—a 2023 Trio Award finalist and 2024 Wisconsin Poetry Series semi-finalist—is the runner-up to the 2023 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize from Madville Publishing. Finishing Line Press published her chapbooks Firefly and Lockdown: Scenes From Early in the Pandemic. Ellen is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee whose work appears in many places, including SWIMM, Salamander, The Maine Review, Lily Poetry Review, and ONE ART. Ellen holds an MFA in Poetry from the Solstice program. She lives in Cincinnati, OH, where she hosts Poetry Night at Sitwell’s. More info @ https://ellenaustinli.me/