CHARLOTTE'S PURPOSE

The Beautiful Before


Poetry for when the "right words" don't form sentences
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3/21/2018

Phoenix

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by Heather Carnaghan

I wish I believed in genies,
in fairy godmothers
and Jesus.

What a beautifully comforting thought

it would be
to picture you
warm, eyes glistening,
cooing in the laps of angels
and rising

from your ash,
a gold feathered phoenix.

I don’t need three wishes
or a thousand prayers of intercession.
I have only one desire
that matters
and no spirit can grant it.



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3/21/2018

Hiccups

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by Heather Carnaghan

I whispered your name to the same trees
that already knew it well.
They wept acorn tears
and clung to their last leaves

defiantly remembering the spring
as I angrily failed to find the words
that could conjure the sound of your last heartbeat.

I told each squirrel to relay my love
should they find you in the wood.
One stared curiously at me
and, for one lingering moment,
we shared the thought of you.


I released a stone inked with “two months”
onto the undisturbed silt
below the surface of the lake.
It’s tiny engraved fox
will soon be covered with ice
and, like your hiccups,
only I will ever know it was there.



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3/21/2018

Smell of the Forest

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by Heather Carnaghan

Missing you is a physical ache deep in my chest;
It’s a heaviness that bends my spine
and burdens every step.

Is there something deeper,
truer
than “I love you”
that a mother can tell her child?

I love the smell of the forest.
I love the taste of a raspberry

plucked sun-warm from my grandfather’s garden.


But you,
you are a need in my soul
that “I love you” can’t explain.

What words hold in them
every breath I breathe?




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3/21/2018

Sucker Punches

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by Heather Carnaghan

There it is,
the look of recognition

the scan of my body
and the moment she takes in
my shrinking waistline.

She gleefully asks, “Did you have the baby?”
Timidly, I squeak out “Yes”

My nod is too emphatic; it raises alarm in her eyes,
She was born, but
“No”,  my head sways left and right,
less adamantly
more confused

She never came home with me that day
Her eyebrow raises and I doubt my answer
Should she count less than babies who do?
My head bobbles, my gut contracts.

My limbs itch to run or fight.
I race to the nearest locking door

so I can catch my breath
before the next
“How many children do you have?”
“Where’s the baby?”
or “We’re expecting!”



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3/21/2018

Whispered

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by Heather Carnaghan

It is no religious miracle
nor medical marvel
that I have survived for one month
with a piece of my heart
forever gone.

It is a feat of strength
borrowed from friends
and carried by you.

In my weakest hours
and ugliest of times,
when I had nothing to return,
you held my hand
and whispered, “I love you”.


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3/21/2018

Chocolate Brown

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by Heather Carnaghan

Your chocolate brown crib
so carefully assembled
and covered in the softest bedding
has a flowing ruffle below.

A mint colored blanket
stitched with love
still sits folded in anticipation.

Your name is painted in cheerful script
behind a delicate paper mobile
hung to make you smile as you gaze up at it.

All it does is make me long to know
the color of your sleeping eyes.  
Hazel? Green?
Or chocolate brown like Daddy’s?


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3/21/2018

Due Date

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by Heather Carnaghan

All of the broken promises
of this beautiful
and awful date

are heavy in a place in my heart
where, now exists only stolen hope.


Who I was
and who you would have been
died that day and left me
with all of the parts of motherhood
that the drug of a newborn’s smell subdues.

How cruel it seems
that I also have this love
that is so deep
that I will take all of these awful things
if they are all I am meant to have of you.


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3/21/2018

Nevers & Withouts

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by Heather Carnaghan

My heart has lodged itself
deep in my stomach,

wreaking havoc on other vital organs.

My throat is full,
choked by words I cannot find
and a howl I cannot let escape.

Grief is clawing at my soul
A fierce and frightening beast
that haunts my dreams
and lurks in the shadows
of every waking moment.

Fear surrounds me,
filling  places it never touched before,
of returning to life
of mothering as a ghost,
of all the “nevers” and “withouts”.  



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3/21/2018

Cygnus XI

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by Heather Carnaghan

A hole so vast and so deep
that the dropped stone
never makes the telltale “thunk” as it collides with earth.


An emptiness, infinite like space.
expanding,
ever larger the longer it exists.

It sucks the air from my lungs
and swallows every possibility.

Into the blackness
go her lips and her eyes
her kisses and the things she would see

her tiny fingers
and all they might have held

her perfect feet
and all of the places
we should have gone together.


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3/21/2018

Corpse Color

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by Heather Carnaghan

The day you were born
still and silent
my heart
was shattered
into fragments so sharp
that they pierced
through my whole life
and opened wounds
that will never heal.

I held your tiny hand
and stroked your chubby cheeks.
they grew cold
as my own warmth seeped out of you
and the corpse color
crept over your perfect toes.


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3/21/2018

7:23

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by Heather Carnaghan

The silence of stillbirth
doesn’t tiptoe in
or creep quietly,

camouflaged,
              considerate.

It roars
and wails

and fills the space
stealthily,
         greedily,

so there is no air left to breathe.


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3/21/2018

27th Hour

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by Heather Carnaghan

Crumpled tissues sit bedside,
wet with twenty seven hours of sweat
and tears so salty they’ve left crystalline tracks on my cheeks

The glasses I’d never before removed for fear of missing a moment
are strewn, one leg splayed
their lenses fogged with bloody fingerprints
and organic remnants of the moment I wished I had been blind to.   


I scan the room, wild eyed,
trying to find the source

of that horrible noise.


It assaults my ears and pastes a look of horror on my husbands ragged face.

A wail
so deep and terrible that
it hails from a primitive part of the psyche
that has no words for this pain.


The audience stands,
hesitantly at first,
wringing their hands
and covering their mouths
as they realize what I am searching for.



The sorrowful ovation
faces me
and at last

the source is clear.

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3/21/2018

Fox

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by Heather Carnaghan

My car flew dangerously around the bend
as I fled my cookie cutter neighborhood
where wildlife
has been neatly replaced by concrete

and a community pool.

She dove into the road,
as unexpected as my frenzied midnight journey.
Tires screeched, tattooing the fresh tar,
but she sat, still and stoic,
staring with holographic eyes,

unafraid.  

I stared back,
distractedly thinking
how unlike a real fox
the toys I’d bought for Charlotte were.



She was beautiful,
fiercely so,
like loving her might rip the heart
right out of your chest.
Her fiery tail flicked impatiently
as she bored with our encounter
and let me pass.   


I didn’t recognize the gift that she left me:
a permanent symbol of a life

that wouldn’t last.


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3/21/2018

3am

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by Heather Carnaghan

She stopped kicking.

Just like that
her elbows and knees
paused their nine month

assault on my organs.

I drank honey
to coax her to dance
and ice water,
               was that a shiver...?

My swollen belly
was leaden,
heavy with the death
my heart

made me blind
to see.


I drove on
with hope,
a phone,

and three car seats
in the back seat
of my tiny Hyundai Accent.



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3/21/2018

South

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by Heather Carnaghan

“It’s just a heartbeat scan”
I told him

and my words turned his car around.
They echoed through the next two months

and left him forever wondering
if her heart would still be beating
if he’d continued
south on 95.


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3/21/2018

BinDer

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by Heather Carnaghan

Love is a strong word
for a binder
but this binder was a work of art
a type A educator’s
titillating dream.

Deliciously color coded,
it held coveted secrets to my

daily doings
learned over thirteen years
of attendance
and parent conferences,
of messy inquiry
and messier class pets.



That binder held in it
the blueprint

for a substitute,
that stranger to my surrogate children,
to assume my teacher identity
fully and competently
for an entire quarter,
(A lifetime to an 8th grader).
It was just enough time

for me to grow
a wriggling newborn into

a rolling three month old.

I was ready for her.






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3/21/2018

Charlotte

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by Heather Carnaghan

I like Lucy.    
                                                                                    Charlie Brown’s friend, is it?

They’re not friends,
But anyway. It’s short
like Jack and Sam’s.


                                                                                        Biff is short.  We’re not naming her
                                                                                        Biff.


Aoife?
It’s Irish like you
and smooth like Kerrygold.
                                
                                                                                            “Ee-fah”?

                                                                                             That’s a life sentence,
                                                                                             not a name. No one can say Aoife.  


Amelia is…

                                                                                               ...the air hostess?

The pilot, you dolt!    
A strong namesake.


                                                                                                   A Doctor Who companion, really.
                                                                                                   What else is on that list?

Charlotte.

                                                                                                       C-h-a-r-l-o-t-t-e ?

Yeah. Charlotte.
Jack, Sam, and Charlotte.




Well?


                                                                                                             Charlotte.


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3/21/2018

Lovesong

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by Heather Carnaghan

Some women
loath the girth
of their newly pregnant bodies.

Not me.

I loved my curves.
Full and round,
I strutted, head high,
in dresses so tight

that they hugged
my hips
and showed your kicks.


Those kicks were our secret,
you hid most from daddy,
but I knew you through them.
The tiny elbows in my ribcage
were a constant love song
that grew stronger

over our nine month romance.

The rhythms and harmonies,
those eager heartbeats
and hiccups,
sang of firsts steps and parades,
of treasure hunts and birthday cakes.  



When the scan
turned you from it
to a she
the key changed somehow.

Our song was of tea parties and scraped knees,
of adventures and girl scouts.
A sweet refrain played in my head
of touching my daughter’s

confidently clothed belly,
swollen with a lovesong of her own.


​

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3/21/2018

Sunglasses

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Heather Carnaghan
​

I smile
at the newborn’s first coos

and the delicious softness
of her peach fuzz hair against my cheek.
I am drunk on the smell 
of sweet, sour milk 
and so much life to live.

Your hair was fine.

A single lock was spared by the nurses 
before your perfect puckered mouth
and round cheeks
were turned to ash.
My consolation prize

was taped to ugly paper 
with an uninspired border
that was haphazardly off-center.

Why does she get a lifetime 
of smoothing sleep-dampened hair
and frilly bows
but I am left with 37 taped strands 
and a tear-stained box of cinders?

I didn’t spill a single tear 
on her pink and wriggling infant.

I saved them all for the desperate ride home
camouflaging jagged, jealous thoughts
and raw eyes behind unnecessary sunglasses.
​

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3/21/2018

Weathering Winter

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Heather Carnaghan

These woods
are full of death
of fallen oaks

and ungrown seeds,
those miscarriages of the earth.

Decaying trunks
one hundred rings thick
are strewn across the mossy floor.

I sit on ancestors
and wonder how many

have fallen before.

Does the Earth mourn
the crushed sapling
or the masticated seed?


Does her molten core
break like mine
when blight strikes
the new growth?


Could my single tear 
be the definitive drop
a thirsty leaf
needs to weather the desolate winter?

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3/21/2018

Keystone

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Heather Carnahan

“You’re so strong!” they exclaim
and I thank them for the awkward compliment
that only I seem to know is a lie. 


I was pieced back together hastily
and none of the cracked stones of that perfect arch
fit back into their places snuggly anymore.


My keystone is gone.

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3/21/2018

Breathing

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Heather Carnaghan

You are the negative space
in every picture,
absent, 

black and empty
against the bright whites
of their toothy grins
and colorful vitality.


You are the quiet reflection
in the rogue moments
between my meticulous words,
the sharp intake of air
after pregnant pauses 
and faraway stares.


You are the deliberation
behind each breath
as I dubiously opt

to go on breathing. ​

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3/21/2018

Sugaring

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Heather Carnaghan

Grief is thick and heavy.

It is tree sap,
stubbornly stuck to my hands
no matter how hard I scrub
or what chemicals I employ.


It sticks to the fibers of the rest of my life
and ruins each with its sticky blackness.

Perhaps if I face it head on,
tap it,
boil away the teary wetness,
some sugaring will take place
and I will find purpose
in my child’s death

and live again 
like in the beautiful before.

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3/21/2018

Quicksand

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Heather Carnaghan

"Without you" is a quicksand, 
​deep and unforgiving.
The more I struggle against its slurping grasp,
the more mercilessly it pulls me downward.

I will never step out of it,
but when I stop resisting 
I float to the surface of my grief
where I can still feel the sun on my face.

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3/21/2018

Seeds

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Heather Carnaghan

The blinding, slashing rain of this wretched storm
will pass
and in its wake new growth 
will rise up
​from seeds I never knew I planted.
                                                                 ​

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  • Home
  • Read & View
    • Books & Stories
    • Fox Sightings (Blog)
    • The Beautiful Before (Poetry)
    • Expressions of Grief (Artwork)
    • Grief Quote Gallery
    • Book Club
    • Submit a Post, Story, Poem, Artwork
  • Grief Resources
    • For the Mother >
      • Labor & Delivery
      • Saying Goodbye
      • Maternity leave with no baby
      • Build a Support Network
      • Journal
      • Music for Healing
      • Embrace Your Inner Artist
      • Get Active
      • Remembering Your Baby
      • Read About Grief & Healing
      • Become a Support for Others
      • Pregnancy After Loss
    • For the Father/Partner >
      • Build a Network
      • Journaling
      • Embrace Art
      • Find Ways to Remember Baby (F/P)
      • Read More About Grief & Healing
    • For the sibling >
      • A child grieves a different loss
      • Healthy Grief, Strange Behavior
      • Grief Patterns By Age
      • Rules of Parenting a Grieving Child
      • Children's Books & Resources
    • For the Grandparent
    • For Caregivers & Medical Staff
    • How to Support a grieving friend >
      • What is stillbirth?
      • What do I say or do?
      • When does grief end?
  • Memorial Planning
    • Components
    • Readings
    • Music
    • Program Templates
    • Other Ways to Remember your baby
    • Financial Assistance
  • Weekend of Kindness
    • Weekend of Kindness 2023
    • PROJECTS WE'RE PROUD OF
    • JOIN THE KINDNESS CREW
    • A FEW KIND IDEAS
  • Wrapped in Love Project
    • Project Wish List
    • Resources for Sewists
    • Project Gallery
    • Donate a Dress
    • Volunteer to Sew
  • Store