Postpartum, by Fiona Perry
You are as naked as a shucked oyster
so, my breasts are slashed and raining pearls
for you, my suckling child. The universe
has too many doors. A terrifying flower
unfurled overnight to tell me if they took
you away or carted you off to die
like pink tender veal. I would be prepared
to stand on my own mother’s shoulders
to push you back up to the surface, to stop
you from drowning— and she would want that—
because she too must have discovered this feral
wisdom in the bloodied wake of birth. Everything
is unfastening around me, voluptuously, in ways
I cannot understand yet. For now, I must be patient
occupy this hinterland and allow the stars to realign.
Fiona Perry’s first collection Alchemy (Turas Press) has been shortlisted for the Poetry Book Awards 2021
This poem is from Alchemy, (Turas Press). Fiona Perry was born and brought up in the north of Ireland but has lived in England, Australia, and New Zealand. Her short fiction has won first prize in the Bath Flash Fiction Award 2020 as well as second prize in the Over the Edge Fiction Slam 2021. Her poetry has been published internationally in publications such as Lighthouse, Skylight47, Spontaneity, and Other Terrain. She contributed poetry to the Label Lit project for National Poetry Day (Ireland) 2019. Follow her on Twitter: @Fionaperry17
