With the troubles of pregnancy, travel down the desert road of hardships along a miscarriage.

Fiction by Jennifer Greene


Place my chips on unlucky bets.
Never know where this 
sly desert road is taking me. 
Swinging by from the necks  
of bottles and men.   
Prick my fingers on the cacti 
that I touch, and cut my knees 
on the dusty rocks.  Rub sand  
and salt into the wounds. 
Air pregnant with dust and sulphur.   
Pass by torrid skies, clouds  
like flies, showing no rain,  
hovering on the corpse of desert land. 
Miscarried metaphors of deserts to  
describe what my friend experienced at  
fifteen years old.   
She couldn’t keep the baby 
with a saturated liver.  
Womb that cheated her body.  
Loss is a single track road,  
imagine it snaking down a dry desert, when  
someone writes with unfeminine,  
insensitive imagery;  
cacti, tequila bottles, men. 
Chips of an unlucky bet.   


Jennifer Greene is a young writer from Scotland, obsessed with Chekov and G.B. Shaw. When she isn't writing she's listening to Bob Dylan, and wants a career of writing.