Birth Parent Grief

My nights were broken
Split by the wail
of my phantom baby's cries

Half asleep I would stumble
to the crib that wasn't there

Awake
Aware now
I would return
To my bed
With empty,aching, arms

I wondered
as I hugged my pillow close
And rocked myself to sleep
If you were out there
Truly crying
If your cries had somehow traveled to me
If you were now being rocked and comforted by another

Or if those tears
And cries
were welling up
from a place deep inside me
And spilling into my dreams.

© 1995 Brenda Romanchik