This is one of the most piteous poems I know. It kills me. It really does. It really hurts to read it.
Much of its power lies, for me, in the way the repetends are used. The first, unvarying, conveying the inexorable fate of the mother; while the second varies to suggest the struggle, the trying to escape or pull against fate, the inevitable requirement: to die. It dramatises the stages of grief, really.
It slays me each time I read, "Without her monster, who will ever love her?"
Memorable.
Cally
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