Bumper-Stickers
It was the day after my second miscarriage.
We stood in a queue for fish and chips.
I didn’t feel like cooking.
I didn’t feel like doing anything.
Two women ahead of us were deep in conversation:
‘She’s getting a cot from my sister, clothes from Jane’,
‘What a chubby little boy…’ his weight, his date, his toes.
How friends rally to a birth.
I thought, how easy for some to drop a sprog,
of all our preparations, discussions of names,
trips to Mothercare. All that excitement turned
into silence and I-don’t-know-what-to-say looks.
Outside we walked between parked cars
loathing the Baby on Board bumper-stickers.
…
Sue Spiers lives in Hampshire and works with Winchester Poetry Festival and the Open University Poetry Society. Her poems have been published in 14, Acumen, Fenland Poetry Journal and Stand, and on-line at Ink, Sweat & Tears. Sue tweets @spiropoetry.
atriumpoetry.com 