First you think you might be pregnant feel odd within yourself it'll change everything but you decide to keep it and feel it growing – a small knot that's a part of you and also not You can be patient when you have to for awhile but it is also keeping you awake at night a lot to consider but you're at the point of hard slogarama no return, trapped feeling sick full of doubt but determined to see this through because you must you told a magpie this was happening so there's expectation the universe is watching the departed hover while you wonder about final outcomes sickly, damaged by delivery fair, dark, a screamer but then after a final push the thing is miraculously born and seems whole after cleaning it up you feel strangely calm and just strong enough to pop it in an envelope and submit it to an editor for consideration. Fare well, little poem, farewell
Bio: Allan Lake has lived in Vancouver, Cape Breton Island, Ibiza, Tasmania, Sicily and at present Melbourne. He published his collection, Sand in the Sole, in 2014.In 2015 Lake won the Elwood Poetry Prize. During 2016 his poems have appeared in Meniscus, Plumwood Mountain Journal and Poetry for Public Transport.