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But What I'm Trying to Say Mother IsAuthor(s): AiSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Summer, 1971), p. 31Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20157759 .

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BUT WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY MOTHER IS

You are barely able to walk, sewn up between your legs, bleeding like hell, and slumped over from the weight of six months of pregnancy,

although it is all over.

You wear your green, chenille robe

and carry a picture of the dead child, the fifth one.

Mother, why don't you stop looking at me?

Forgive yourself, let me wash you, please. And yes, I go to the cemetery. I cry, I pray for his soul, I pour milk on his grave, and I do it because I loved you once, I did, and it was good.

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