Garden

Olivia Peters-Rivera

There is a reminder
in my womb
that my body
could still produce
a child
if I choose. 

It is a dull ache
radiating out and away
a haloed orb of pain.
I’m older, today
than I was
when my first child- 

second, third children-
were born.
I was
nearing middle age
when my fourth
took her form, deep 

in the light-less adytum
of my body.
Most days, now,
I am afraid of my own face
in the mirror.
There are lines, etchings  

that widen by the moment.
I want to go back,
relive so much of my life
that I lost somehow along the way.
Each morning and each night
I cradle small griefs in my hand 

like a thousand grains of sand,
polished smooth by heartache and fear.
But my body does not pay
this too much mind;
it still offers me life,
there is a garden here.

---

Olivia Peters-Rivera

Olivia Peters-Rivera holds degrees in Anthropology and Literacy Studies. She directs a language program at a university in the swampy southeastern United States, and in her spare time enjoys being immersed in the wild, both urban and rural. Her work has recently been featured in Tiny Seed Literary Journal.