Anya Kirshbaum
Want of a Child
Even then,
so small, I answered
to a mother’s
sadness. From deep
in the unmade
rooms of my body,
a flame. It was fashioned
of something slighter
than words; ungraspable
as water
in fogged air. A kind
of wanting, written
onto the rungs
of my vertebrae—
ancient, unsung.
Even then, a child myself
I searched the yard
for something—
snail shell, mouse tooth,
earthworm’s pink
undulation or the onions–
wild, proliferating
in ink-black
soil. How I dug and dug for them,
their sharp-dirt scent.
How much I craved holding
those shrunken moons—
the heft of marbles
in my palm. What is born
from darkness, folded
under swallow’s wing,
or pungent soil
from a place
so deep, so tender—
cavern of uterus that
doesn’t bring
and doesn’t
bring. Child
written and unwritten.
Then so suddenly:
a meadow,
fireweed after
blaze-storm.
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Image by Arthouse Studio from Pexels
Anya Kirshbaum (she/her) is a queer poet and somatic therapist living in Seattle, Washington. Her work has appeared in Mississippi Review, Whale Road Review, Crannóg, Solstice Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the New Millennium Writing Awards and the Patricia Dobler Poetry Award, was nominated for a 2024 Forward Prize, and was the recipient of the 2023 Banyan Poetry Prize. Her work is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2025.
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