O Mocking Bassinet

O Mocking Bassinet

O mocking bassinet
   and now unneeded treasure
   hoard of pink and blue,
I cannot look at you.

O mutinous organ,
   inhospitable home
   full of treachery and betrayal,
Why expel this tiny
   life most loved?

O unrefreshing rain
   of tears and blood
Fill up my heart’s black
   bottomless void – 
All that is left 
   of motherhood.

© 2004 by Violet Nesdoly
(First published in Calendar)

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Twenty-nine years ago today I was in despair. I was in hospital because my pregnancy wasn’t behaving. Sometime in the afternoon of April 8, 1982 it ended in a surgical procedure after the doctor no longer detected the baby’s heartbeat.

Quite a few years after that experience, I wrote the poem, above, in an attempt to revisit that bleak day and express the sadness of miscarriage.

I am so blessed because that wasn’t my last pregnancy!