no swaddle

Mackenzie Kozak

• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781685970109
• eBook ISBN: 9781685970116
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Mackenzie Kozak examines the complex question of whether or not to bear children. Through a series of untitled American sonnets, the poems speak to themes of origin and desire, noting the shame that can accompany such a decision. Many poetry collections speak to the varied griefs of becoming a mother, losing a child, or being unable to have a child, but this collection gives specific voice to another grief that feels unspeakable: the possible conclusion of not wanting to be a mother.
no swaddle reads as a sort of meditation on theme, its repeated form mirroring the spiraling nature of indecision and reconsideration of the same major question alongside its continuous struggle to name. In the end, this grappling with elements of grief and shame becomes a way of moving toward greater agency and fulfillment.
 

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Epigraph
• suppose i knew, and held the dogs off
• in a room without babbling, i had him
• in a bed made of wind and womb
• enter the year with the scowled jaw,
• i was a tired bride, a tired prize.
• if i heard you, little heartbeat,
• oh, i can’t make a body stay, for it would
• so i carried you off, little spark
• a woman i know who is part-mother tells me, if you had gotten pregnant
• love, it is a season of trances,
• he says, not this year or the next, but maybe
• and they baited me, drawing
• sometimes i swear in the distance
• mother, i am such a bother, my drift and tear,
• but then there was no one way
• i was not a center, i was a spade,
• sister, i exhale through my own bandage
• a woman i know who is part-mother tells me,
• i encounter a sort of doom,
• you were on the moon. where
• i wake from the ruffle and bandage of sleep
• my mother at the throat of dawn, her head
• broad strokes, i gave you,
• i came to you cathedral-mouthed,
• a woman i know who is part-mother
• sometimes like a haven is another’s
• a mess in oils, greyscale,
• i would call her lucy, loulou, little bird. and peel her,
• moth to a flame, to a mouth:
• sister, everything darkens or splits
• or how i deemed myself unfit
• stranded by some evening, its round fist,
• i tell you i am so sweet on so
• a back deck increment blinks
• the stage of the mood depends
• mother, this is not the garden you spoke of,
• the closeness i wanted. the held and the heat.
• mother, i comb my psyche for weeds,
• to go headfirst into such a question,
• from this patience begets a rattling, murmur
• maybe i will call it a juncture
• sister, what happens at the branching places,
• a woman i know who is part-mother tells me,
• we watch red desert and rocks
• lucy waking, clutching the fence of the crib,
• mother, i pair your ardor with wonder
• i have a way of being stepped on when
• mother, all things are heaven or
• and the women around me, my sirens,
• a couple of orgasms before noon, work
• or what of the ending,
• a woman i know who is part-mother tells me,
• sister, scent is a marker, a marigold
• a woman i know who is part-mother asks me,
• love, the thought enters my mind
• i give it a week, a month, four years,
• so what we have come to, says, childless,
• what does it feel like? to chase without
• and how did we come upon it,
• after all this, the riddles, the deep and flowered
• Acknowledgments
• Series List