I wait to start my period, drive
the children I already have to
swim lessons. In order to float,
a person must trust their body
and the water beneath, the water
surrounding the body for support.
Later we’ll eat cherries with glossy
bloody pits spit into plastic bags.
I give each a choice to cling or drop
toward the soil, to sprout or save
its fertility for another day.
My daughters ask if the bagged
seeds will die. No, I say. No.
They will just wait.
–
Stefanie Kirby is a Pushcart nominated poet residing along Colorado’s front range. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Passages North, Pidgeonholes, Portland Review, Rust+Moth, DIALOGIST, and elsewhere.