Postpartum Depression

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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A wound like that
doesn't leave a scar
because it never heals.

Fifty years ago
the doctors didn't
have a name for it

but that's no help
to Jimmy now.
Ginny's dead

and their six kids
have children of their own,
some of them in college.

The doctors know
how to treat it now.
They tell mothers

what to watch for
after giving birth.
They tell fathers, too,

but that's no help
to Jimmy
in his wheel chair

sitting in the lobby
of the nursing home
watching silent

movies of his life
flicker through his mind.
A rerun every day.

He can't even
speak about it
since the stroke.

A wound like that
doesn't leave a scar
because it never heals.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.