A review by moosegurl2
The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón

4.0

"I will never be a mother.
That's all. That's the whole thought.
I could say it returns to me, watching the horses.
Which is true.
But I could also say that it came to me
as the swallows circled us over and over,
something about that myth of their tail,
how generosity is punished by the gods.
But isn't that going too far? I saw a mare
with her foal, and then many mares
with many foals, and I thought, simply:
I will never be a mother."


"Seems like a good place for a close-eyed
thing, forever close-eyed, under a green plant

in the ground, under the feast up above. Between
the ground and the feast is where I live now.

Before I bury him, I snap a photo and beg
my brother and my husband to witness this

nearly clear body. Once it has been witnessed
and buried, I go about my day, which isn't

ordinary, exactly, because nothing is ordinary
now even when it is ordinary. Now something's

breaking always on the skyline, falling over
and over against the ground, sometimes

unnoticed, sometimes covered up like sorrow,
sometimes buried without even a song."