Tara Mae Mulroy

Embryology

I admire irises for their audacity
to be split and grown. In sex, my body
lies down, holds nothing.

The ova I see on the monitor, a string
of pearls, don’t break and divide, and come spring,
won’t bloom.

Our second bedroom holds a white crib,
satin christening dress, in waiting,
boxed.

Tara Mae Mulroy is a graduate of the MFA program in poetry at the University of Memphis. Her poems, stories, and essays are published or forthcoming in Third Coast, CutBank, Waccamaw, and others found at taramaemulroy.wordpress.com. Her chapbook, Philomela, was released from dancing girl press in 2014, and she is sending out her first full-length collection, Swallow. She currently teaches Latin.