The death of a child is, for many, a fear too terrifying to imagine. The poems collected here explore this difficult loss; they examine the realities that form, and fall away, after the realization of a parent?s worst fear. Through the poems? speaker, a bereaved mother, a multitude of worlds are mapped: the world of grief, of language, of the body, of love and guilt, of conflicted self-identity, of cultural denial, of courageous reclamation. What emerges from these poems is an intimate and layered lyric narrative that negotiates the collapsed boundaries of the public and the private, the dead and the living. / Graduation date: 2009 / Access restricted to the OSU Community at author's request from April 17, 2012 - April 17, 2017