After a nine-hour brownout, our village cheers & looks like a mouth

For everything hinges on light
after a long darkness. I still remember the wide grin
of the stretcher clenching my splayed body.
Black-lunged scabs I tucked under my scalpelled belly,
a trade for your sunsmile. Every mouth
in the room the wide, dewy lips of flowers meditating
on their first morning miracle. Mine
praying for the doctor’s hands to find you
blushed after unfraying the fleshy umbilical
cord strangling your neck.
How all the world’s loose change fell
upon my soul’s laughless pocket
when she said,
Your baby cried.
Her skin is pink.

This piece was first published in Issue 3 (June 15, 2024), “Anticipation”, of Epistemic Literary.

In Poetry

Gretchen Filart

Gretchen is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and essayist from the Philippines, where she embraces life while managing bipolar disorder and ADHD. Her confessional pieces unpack the complexities of grief, healing, motherhood, love, and intersections, garnering recognition from the Greg Grummer Poetry Contest and Navigator's Travel Writing Competition.