Private Pain in Time of Trouble

How can I sustain

this troubled swelling:

my heart like an eggplant,

blackened, bulbous, grows too greedy:

bruised and sorrowful,

it will not let its great loss go,

wanting to be pendulous with child.

Private pain in time of trouble

as the dark-eyed children burn.

They stretch out their small hands to me:

sparrows, and I do not hear.

It is a false spring this year.