Motherhood

        for Sabrina

No babies will blossom inside my womb
the clock has halted, time’s bolted the door
now, melancholy fills an empty room
where playthings and books once covered the floor—
when dollies and teatime were afternoons
with Snow White China and tables for two
we’d sit together reading Goodnight Moon
and dream of Cinderella’s one lost shoe.
Now life becomes short, a counting of days
and my body cries out for all that dies
long years of mothering, her youthful ways
my grown-up beauty with grace in her eyes.
Sometimes she visits, I kiss her, and know,
the best thing I’ve done was watching her grow.

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Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas is a recent graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts with an MFA in Writing. In 2012, her chapbook, Before I Go to Sleep, won the Red Ochre Press Chapbook Contest. In 2019, her chapbook An Ode to Hope in the Midst of Pandemonium was a finalist in the Eric Hoffer Book Award, and in 2021, her collection Alice in Ruby Slippers was short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize. A thirteen-time Pushcart Prize nominee and seven-time Best of the Net nominee, she was recently awarded a certificate of achievement by the California Writers Club and named Centennial Poet for her contributions to their 100-year celebration.