Jennifer Mills Kerr

Failed Creation 

Inside the kiln, your once-upon-a-time bowl, burned, broken. Usually, you
throw the shards away, shamed by a crime you didn’t commit. Like when
your mother banished you to the basement– 

You disobedient girl.

They wanted a son. Patrick. Name chosen, and you arrived five weeks
early without one, a blue baby, intensive care, Cesarean–the unwanted
guest, banging at the door at dinner time. From

the cellar’s dusty step,

you hear upstairs your mother’s sighs, her heart, stitched by white picket
fences. A lost son. Better to go subterranean, like your father: a creak on
the stair after bedtime, a car humming to life at dawn, a thread  

stretching, unbroken

 in your imagination. A person who doesn’t exist can be grieved, lost,
reborn, branches scratching dingy glass, daisies planted outside a locked
door. Now, you listen to the broken bits cupped in your hand, scorched
fragments,  

remembered fire.

Jennifer Mills Kerr runs A World in a Line Creative Writing Workshops for poets and fiction writers. Her work has been recently published in One Art Poetry and 50-Word Stories. Lit-amorous, she’s on a perpetual quest for the next amazing poem to read, savor, and share. Connect with Jennifer at www.JenniferMillsKerr.com.