I Wish I'd Written This Poem

Goldsboro Narrative #27

The dark and heavy coat she always wore hid
From her as much as anyone

What grew her belly out one thought at a time.

And she who did not know her body,
Who was surprised to feel it

Created with some boy she'd barely met,

Ignored the word so much a shock
She was someone who used to be herself.

She was stunned as anyone to learn

A newborn was found inside
A trash bin, a trail winding it's way back to someone

We all thought we knew.


— Forrest Hamer, from Ploughshares 32:1 edited by Kevin Young


I love the density of the language and images. And I love the daring subject matter, how compassionately it is explored. And the shock of the line break: "A newborn was found inside/a trash bin." This small poem conveys so much information, but doesn't tell us everything, leaves a fair amount of the mystery intact. It reminds me a little of Edgar Lee Masters' epitaph poems in The Spoon River Anthology. I really wish I had written this.