To My Unnamed Daughter:

Still, folded between flesh nooked
in eyelets, in a garden of so much unseen
strawberry blush, you are kept half-
formed and listless little love, till boats
of skin slip past—all three of us unmoored
with one cry. Soul-breathed and fluttering.
No bigger than a mouse’s pink kite, but
soon to be tended criss, cross, apple, sauce
with me: fully-mantled in messy overalls
beneath the sky. I never thought I’d pray

for an uneventful pregnancy.

 

 

 

About the Poet:
Ben Kingsley is best known for his Academy Award winning role as Mahatma Ghandi. This Ben is a touch less famous. He hasn’t acted since a third grade debut as the undertaker in Music Man. Currently, he is a Michener Fellow, VONA: Voices of our Nation Scholar, and belongs to the Onondaga Nation of Indigenous Americans in New York. He holds an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently his work has been published in Prairie Schooner and Diverse Voices Quarterly.

 

 

Poetry Breakfast accepts submissions of poetry and poetry related creative non-fiction year-round.  See our Submission Guidelines page for details on submitting your work.

 

 

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