by Terhi K. Cherry

Your baby didn’t die because of raw fish,
soft cheese, deli meat, or sex,

not because of exercise, the grocery bags,
or Tylenol,

not because of one bad choice, an argument,
the side you slept on,

not because of pinot noir before
you knew.

A scientist vows, one in four ends,
it doesn’t mean it wasn’t written:

the hue of the skin,
how the cheekbones would rise,

if hair locks would flock
and tangle.

Someone was taking root,
trying real hard to divide

into a cluster of diamonds,
into liver and lungs, to burrow into you

like you were a rock crevice
and the shoots of a hawthorn unreachable.

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Terhi K. Cherry is a poet, writer, and research psychologist. Her work appears in TIMBER, Rogue Agent, Literary Mama, Cultural Weekly, Vox Viola Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and her debut chapbook is forthcoming in 2022. Terhi lives in Los Angeles and facilitates poetry for personal growth.