Dearling | Carolyn Oliver

Carolyn Oliver is the author ofInside the Storm I Want to Touch the Tremble(University of Utah Press, 2022), winner of the Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry. Her poems appear in her first chapbook,Mirror Factory(Bone & Ink Press, 2022), and inThe Massachusetts Review, Copper Nickel, At Length, Smartish Pace, Shenandoah, Beloit Poetry Journal, 32 Poems, Southern Indiana Review, and elsewhere. Carolyn lives in Massachusetts with her family. To connect with her online, please visitcarolynoliver.net.

Photo credit: Benjamin Oliver

Nine Minutes in June

My son insists he hatched from an egg. True,
they cracked my shell and scooped the yolk of him
from me, the scrambled rest all draped askew
atop my hollowed belly, just a scrim
of blue between my sight and what I made
in dark months. As they scraped me clean my arms
quaked, spread empty-wide. I wasnt afraid
of anything except the worlds old charms:
bees in their hives, the storm that ends the drought,
the taste of wine when loves in short supply.
Slick roads at night. A flash of island out
beyond the swells. No lizard mother I:
Dearest hatchling, how often would I break
my self for you? Heres one wide scar, one ache.