Untelling

I do not like to think of her alone 
in that dark moment after they told her 
yet I have been picturing her my whole 
life. She was little and surely afraid. 
A cold day for May, rain falling aslant, 
gray sky hunkered low over the graveyard, 
and growling. She might have clutched a doll but
no, was too poor for that. Then she grew up.
Working, busy, fast, determined, her hands 
bleach-shriveled, her mind set on survival. 
She learned lovely penmanship and typing. 
Always smiling despite her crooked teeth. 
Don’t ever give up, she sometimes whispered 
to herself when all was lost. Now she says 
when she felt me shiver in her belly 
that was the first time she ever was full.