Written by J. C. Todd
and the fires rain down from nightly raids, the rubble’s in flames, and the mother’s pulling on boots, walking into the scorched-walled garden to dig up unsinged bulbs she’ll chop like shallots and simmer behind the blackout drapes, a bitter broth, all there is to feed the unborn one. First published in Todd, J. C. The Damages of Morning. Moonstone Press, 2018.
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J. C. Todd is author of Beyond Repair (2021), a special selection for the Able Muse Press Book Award,
and The Damages of Morning (Moonstone Press, 2018), finalist for the 2019 Eric Hoffer Micropress
Award. She has been the winner of the Rita Dove Poetry Prize (2016), commended in the National
Competition of the Poetry Society of UK (2022), and a finalist in the Poetry Society of America
Robert Winner contest (2015), with fellowships from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Bemis
Center, and the Ragdale Foundation. Her poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Full Bleed, The
Paris Review, Valpairiso Review, Virginia Quarterly Review and other journals. www.jc-todd.com