Yarrow House

Small Daughter

 No, little baby I am 
not going to have, 
you cannot come and live
with me.
          Small daughter,
whom I have held
an empty place for, 
a place just your shape, 
which now will be 
a hole in me which I will 
not fill, 
you do not 
have a home here.

But I can tell you 
that beside the hole 
is a woman yearning.
				

Published in Raindance, Journal of Pacific Northwest Poetry, 1979

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Onetime reproduction for non-resale purposes permitted by the author with the following credit line:  by Judith Yarrow