Today's Poem

The poem is introduced in DON'T READ POETRY by Stephanie Burt.

A Birthmother’s Catechism
by Carrie Etter

How did you let him go?

With black ink and legalese

How did you let him go?

It’d be another year before I could vote

How did you let him go?

With altruism, tears, and self-loathing

How did you let him go?

A nurse brought pills for drying up breast milk

How did you let him go?

Who hangs a birdhouse from a sapling?


(from the website of Poetry Society)