The Collection Room
My last chance child
went to Utah on a hired truck.
Insured specimens.
Hopeful miniature, still life,
the wild question remains:
Will we reap a harvest from you?
Hopeful, round portion
at the final bite.
Smallest maybe.
Merciful miniature,
still life.
Copyright © 2025 by Maya Marshall. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 4, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
“When I was coming of age, Dolly the sheep was cloned. As I move toward the end of my reproductive era, debates around choice, IVF, freedom, access to good science, etc., continue to seethe. I remain grateful for the access to the good science that provides my family with choices. This little poem came from an exercise wherein I made a word bank based on my recent journaling, swapped out the nouns and verbs from an existing poem, then revised until a sensemaking narrative emerged. I heard a little dancing in the language and chose tercets to match step.”
—Maya Marshall