In the dark corridor
I hear women
singing in
pitches and tones
all their own
feeling their way through shadows
through the music
of epidurals
in this dissonance
I hear my dead mother’s melody
soft from my daughter’s lips
its waves unravelling their DNA
on our hospital walls
with interlocking shapes
of crowning concertos
Oh what else can unzip
the pain of stretching skin
into pure song?
Kathleen Strafford is a student at Trinity University in Leeds studying for her MA in creative writing. She hopes her first collection of poetry will be published this coming year after graduation. She has been published in magazines & online: Interpreter’s House, Butcher’s Dog, Fat Damsel, Ink Sweat and Tears, Panoply, and various anthologies.