My Grandmother’s Confession, by Katherine June Abrams

Katherine June Abrams
MY GRANDMOTHER’S CONFESSION

I didn’t want him.

When the morning sickness
started for the second time,
I did not weep with joy.

I just wept.

Later I wondered
if those tears
poisoned him;

if they somehow
dripped down
into that aching cavity
and dissolved like honey in tea.

Author’s comment: I was playing, for a time, with dramatic monologues, and experimenting with how to speak in another person’s voice. Most of those poems ended up being in the voice of women in my family who had passed away, and they became deeply personal moments in my family timeline. I was able to express things I could only imagine they would have wanted to say themselves, but never had the opportunity, or the audience, or the courage.

Bio: Katherine June Abrams is, at 31, a new mom and recent entrant into the Goddard College MFA program. She wandered away from the Windy City in 2002 and found herself in Blowing Rock, NC, where she met her husband and built her home. She has been trying to make poems come alive since she was eight years old, and plans to bring creative writing to at-risk youth when she completes her degree.