I dreamt that I had a baby girl.
In the dream, I cried cinnamon
and birthed a fairy from my belly button.
I held her in my hand,
struck by her smallness
and the intrusive desire
to crush her in my fist.

Instead, I circled my thumb over her tiny cherub belly.
Yellowed wings like an old book
slicked to her back, and
bloody ringlets dampened her head.
She had my grandpa’s nose in miniature,
a grumpy little mountain.

She was funny looking,
fat and small like a bee.
The way boys look
like old men shrunk down—
she looked like everyone I’ve loved
got in a mirror and shattered
and we glued it back together wrong.

She screamed like we had,
while I held and shushed and rocked her
and wondered if I knew how to lactate.

Motherhood landed on me like a bug.
I wanted a daughter
so I could bear a best friend,
a lover.
Women in my family
give birth in reverse:
Tiny mothers that grow up
into tall, lonely children.

My bitterness blurred my eyes.

I woke up sweaty and alone
and far too childish
to ever be a mother
to anyone but myself.

– Jennifer McKay

Author’s Note: “The Baby Poem” is about desperation for love as a reason for (not) having children, and how generational trauma complicates the mother-daughter relationship.