There's No Point in Nesting After a Miscarriage (and yet I can't help myself)

/

Mia Herman

I begin with the closet
flinging shirts and shoes
and used cosmetics
onto the bed in a desperate
attempt to make room
for new additions—
like the sparkly crop top
I can barely look at
now that my belly is flat again
or the six-inch heels
I will never wear
because wobbling around
like a fawn first learning
to walk makes me think
of women giving birth
legs splayed in stirrups—
and now my place is a bloody
mess and there is nowhere
to rest this tired body
and I don’t know how long
it will take to make sense
of the chaos, but even so
I am convinced that I can create
some order here.

 
The author smiles for a headshot. She is wearing a straw hat, a gold necklace, a blue cardigan, and a white shirt. They are posed in front of a brick wall.

Mia Herman is a Jewish writer and editor living in New York. Her work has appeared in over two dozen publications, including Barren Magazine, Bellevue Literary Review, Emerge Literary Journal, F(r)iction, Ghost City Press, [PANK], Stanchion, Third Coast, and Variant Lit. Awards for her writing include an Honorable Mention in the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest, nomination for Best of the Net, and finalist for the Frontier Poetry New Voices Fellowship. Mia holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hofstra University and serves as the Nonfiction Editor for F(r)iction magazine. Follow her on Twitter @MiaMHerman.