How She Heard It
Your father gathered what was left
after the birth, slick sack of salt
and blood coloring his hands
warm from my body. He couldn’t help
that it felt the same as when I took him
inside me, drew him out of himself
to be joined with what we were making.
At the edge of our small orchard
he settled the plum seedling
he’d started three years before,
snugged roots in the hole to eat
the placenta. The part of you
you didn’t need fed the tree,
and when you turned six,
you ate from the branches.
Your small hands clasping the dark
shiny skin as you bit the saffron flesh,
juice dribbling at chin, smell as sweet
as the sugar you were born in.
Copyright © 2026 by Todd Davis. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 14, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
“Our birth stories are wondrous and terrifying as we learn the holy work of the body. The denigration and desecration of the body, our embarrassment of it in certain Western traditions, leads to so many unhealthy practices. I want my poems to celebrate our bodies, in all their various forms and ages. I’m grateful for the bodies of my mother and father and the life that was created out of their love. We’d do well to remember that our bodies are part of the earth’s body. It feeds and cares for us, and one day we will return to it. I take joy in this fact.”
—Todd Davis
Todd Davis
