Welcome to Sunday Morning Lyricality, featuring a weekly song or poem by a Minnesota writer. Our current guest editor is Micki Blenkush.
This week’s poem, “Small Griefs” by Nicole Borg is heart-wrenching for the loss that is revealed in so few words. The details are vivid and tender. The speaker’s simple actions and stated longings depict grief in a way that is both memorable and visceral.
Micki Blenkush
Small Griefs
Nicole Borg
I took it with me—
a little coin of flesh, strange and pink,
not a child yet. Not a child.
I took it with me
in the smallest container I could find,
cradling it in the waiting room,
so the midwife could tell me
what I already knew.
I should have brought it home—
I should have found a maple tree
with somber purple leaves,
I should have knelt
in sun-warmed grass
and dug a hole
just large enough.
***
Nicole Borg is an English teacher, editor, poet, and poetry cheerleader, who is enamored with place. Her first collection of poetry All Roads Lead Home (Shipwreckt Books, 2018) is like a poetry road trip. For five years, she was editor of Green Blade, Magazine of the Rural America Writers’ Center. Nicole lives along the lovely Mississippi River with her husband, Glen, and two sons, Lyzander and Lynx.
“Small Griefs” is from Nicole Borg’s book, All Roads Lead Home, published by Shipwreckt books. It appears here with permission of the author.