Mother's Day 1939

“Take out the crib and leave the playpen, Doc.

The diapers that I’ve got are wearing thin,

the oldest boy has rickets and the skin

on his little sister’s pale enough to shock

their gram who won’t come round but half the time.

She’s scared I might be pregnant with a third.

You yourself can see how that’s absurd

to let me starve another. He’ll be unkind,

but it’s easier than feeling that I’m curst

to bear another with a hope so small.”

The doctor hardly looked her way at all

because he had to ask her husband first.

©2015