8 Postpartum Reflections in Almost Tanka
1.
Melinda says sixty percent
Would be prevented
If we could collect
The palpating liquor
As it spills out of our wombs
2.
When there is so much
Daily life in this place
Who has time to measure
The soaking crimson bloom
Until it is her life ended
3.
My child is a dust bunny
Vacuumed out of the corner
Of my womb
Which stays bloated open
And damp after she vacates
4.
My ceiling self crouches
Watching as the women run
Trying to stop my blood
Filling and overfilling
And my baby wails
5.
I live here now
On this sanitized surface
It is nice to watch
After the unceasing doing
Of thirty-six hours labor
6.
I do not mind the quiet
Rocking on the warm wave
Of my fresh blood and milk
Until it is clear
I may not return to land
7.
I hold hands
With Princess Charlotte
On her royal bed linen
Two hundred and six years ago
We decided something would change
∞.
I do not die this time
My nurses' labor
Returns me to bed
With a small pill placed
In the grasping fist of my uterus
Molly Akin is a writer and nonprofit library director based on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She has read in venues including the Emily Dickinson Museum, Wilder Words, Fine Arts Work Center, and New England Poetry Club. Molly will be reading as part of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival in Salem, MA, on May 31, 2025. Her writing has been supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Sundress Academy for the Arts, and Fine Arts Work Center. A semi-finalist for the Black Lawrence Press St. Lawrence Book Prize, Molly’s work has been published or is forthcoming from Brevity, Identity Theory, Inflectionist Review, Paraselene, and Tulip Tree. Her chapbook, Hospice, was the 2024 Finishing Line Press New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition winner and will be published in September 2025.